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“The Model ” 


William Mortensen 














T’ke ^acfiei 


Book 


on 


tiu 



os in 


by 

WILLIAM MORTENSEN 


CAMERA CRAFT PUBLISHING COMPANY 

95 Minna Street San Francisco, 5 Calif. 



Copyright 1948 

Camera Craft Publishing Company 
San Francisco 


Other Books by 

WILLIAM MORTENSEN 

Print Finishing 
Pictorial Lighting 
Outdoor Portraiture 
Monsters & Madonnas 
The Command To Look 
New Projection Control 
Flash in Modern Photography 


CC ^S1GB‘J 


°*POSJt. 


Second Edition 
First Printing March 1948 


ve-323 1 / 

Printed in the United States of America 
by The Mercury Press, San Francisco 

1 

RECEIVED 


may 1 41948 

P0PVR1GHT OmC§ 



To Myrdith 






TABLE OF CONTENTS 


Foreword 

Introduction 14 

Giotto’s goat. The living model in art. The importance of the model in pho¬ 
tography. Corpus delicti. The unmalleable human body. Two types of ad¬ 
justment: physical and psychological. Pantomimic basis of expression in pic¬ 
tures. The artist as a showman. Three kinds of models. “The World With- 
out Clothes”. Fundamental nature of the nude. That which is in front of the 
camera. 

Part One—The Physical Basis. 

Chapter One .......... 20 

The Problem. 

The mechanical approach. The model as a “lay figure”. Negative precepts. 
Problem is best understood in terms of plastic errors. Three stages for cor¬ 
recting errors. Lighting and structure. 

Chapter Two ......... 24 

The Head and Face. 

The head as a structural element. Angles of presentation. Typical faults in 
representation of head. Details of individual features. “There are Smiles”. 
Pictorial limitations of smiles. Combinations of faults. Sensitive points. Ar¬ 
rangement of the hair. Influence of coiffure on shape of face. The skin. Butch¬ 
ery by light. The neck. Two ways of dealing with aberrations. 

Chapter Three ......... 56 

Shoulders , Arms and Hands. 

Expressive qualities of shoulders. Faulty arrangements of shoulders. Charac¬ 
teristic errors in posing arms. Hands, their relationship to personality and ex¬ 
pression. Errors in arrangement of hands. The wrist, and faults pertaining 
to it. 


6 


69 


Chapter Four 

The Torse. 


Anatomical divisions of the torse. The plastic power of the torse. Signif¬ 
icance of breasts and buttocks. Three types of female breast. Preserving 
breast structure. A delicate question of taste. Some errors in posing the torse. 
Three methods of butchery by light. 


Chapter Five .......... 83 

Legs and Feet. 

Effective presentation of legs. Faults of arrangement. Right angles. “Traps”. 
Stumps. Wrong cutting. Foreshortening. Hyper-extension. Crosses. Parallels 
without separation. Placement of feet. 

\ 


Chapter Six .......... 90 

Synthesis. 

Classification of errors. Primary errors and secondary errors. A table of plas¬ 
tic errors. Justification of errors. An example of combined errors. Four 
sample atrocities. Coordination, physical and mental. Coordination as prox¬ 
imity. Michaelangelo’s remark. Stress and strain. Two architectural methods 
and their pictorial analogies. 


Chapter Seven ......... 106 

Costume and Costume Elements. 

The theory of clothes. Decoration as primary motive for clothes. Types of 
bodily ornament. Clothes and anatomy. Faulty design in hats. Position and 
shape of neck line. Length of sleeve. Length of skirt. Position of waist line. 
Relationship of waist line to height of coiffure. Folds and drapery. Effect of 
earrings and necklaces on shape of face. “Costume” and “Wearing Apparel”. 

The shortcomings of costumer s costume. Costume elements, listed and de¬ 
scribed. Using the elements. Building the costume for Erasmus. Costuming 
Flemish Maid. Posing the clothed body. Clothes are based on the properly 
posed nude. Modern dress as “Costume”. 


7 


Chapter Eight ......... 142 

Pictorial Make Up. 

Make up is an additional method of control. The facial bones — the basis of 
make up. Analysis of bony structure of face. List of required make up mate¬ 
rials. Straight make up. A specimen of simple make up. Character make up. 
Imaginative quality more than literal accuracy. Making up Niccolo Machia- 
velli. Beards. The technique of crepe hair. Old age by make up. Procedure 
in making up June. The grotesque, its universality and fascination. Collodion 
make up. The collodion medium is a sort of sculpture in three dimensions. 
Procedure described. Body make up. Make up and the hair. An admonition. 


Part Two .......... 173 

The Model as an Expressive Element. 

“ Being” and “meaning'’. The emotional fallacy. The method of expression. 
Pantomimic symbols. The limits of expression. Explicit and implicit drama. 
Representation of action. Explicit and implicit drama illustrated. Representa¬ 
tion of movement. Expressive qualities of male and female bodies. Expressive 
use of “errors”. Relation of figure and background. Nine methods for sub¬ 
ordinating or emphasizing figure in landscape. Two examples. 


Part Three—Problems of Direction. 


Chapter One .......... 190 

The General Aims of Direction. 

Three principal aims of direction. Three bad reactions from i.todel. Causes 
of resentment. To avoid boredom. Sources of distraction. Factors in secur¬ 
ing proper physical response. Factors in securing emotional expression. 

Chapter Two .......... 206 

The Three Types of Models. 

Three types of association of artist and model. Three corresponding types of 
models. The passive (or plastic) type. The personality type. The coopera¬ 
tive type. 


8 


Chapter Three 

The Plastic Model. 


. 211 


The plastic model defined. Uses of the plastic model. High physical qualifi¬ 
cations demanded of plastic model. Personal relationships. The first time in 
the nude. Culpable carelessness of models. Empathy. Its relation to the 
nude. A blacklist of nudes. Common faults of empathy in nudes. Figure and 
personality. Tokens of a good figure. Fashion and figures. Nudes are not all. 
The use of groups. Building the group picture. Personal relationships in 
dealing with groups. 


Chapter Four ......... 232 

The Personality Model. 

The personality model defined. Photographing the celebrity. Mae West and 
H. G. Wells. The child as a model. The “personal quirk”. 


Chapter Five ......... 243 

The Cooperative Model. 

The cooperative model defined. Relation to other two types. Sorts of coop¬ 
eration. The pattern and procedure of a sitting. Where shall I find models? 


Appendixes. 


Appendix A. . 

The Rights of the Model. 

Releases. Compensation. Regarding the sale of Pictures. Inquiries. 


Appendix B. . . . . • • • • 

Self-Protective Precautions. 

Releases again. Liability insurance. Protection to self esteem of artist. Frame 
ups and the badger game. 


/ 


Appendix C. . 

Analysis of Faulty Nudes. 


. 261 


FOREWORD 


The aim of this hook is to give the student of photography some 
basis for self-criticism in his posing and arranging of the model. 
The basis of this criticism is necessarily largely negative—as all 
worthwhile and useful criticism of creative work is hound to be. 
It is only weaklings and incompetents who plead for “constructive 
criticism”. The constructive, positive part of any art-work must be 
furnished by the artist-pupil himself. The instructor or critic can¬ 
not “constructively” criticize a student’s picture or story or sym¬ 
phony without, in effect, doing the work that the student should do. 
It is true that a presentable picture (or story, or symphony) may 
be thus produced; but it will be, fundamentally, the teacher’s ac¬ 
complishment. 

Therefore, warnings and negative precepts compose a great deal 
of this book. To give positive and concrete instruction on just how 
to pose a model is as impossible as to give instruction on just how to 
write a song. But there are, in both cases, certain errors and traps 
that the incautious or inexperienced worker is liable to, and which 
he may be warned away from. 

Some of the faults that are hereafter represented may seem, be¬ 
cause of their isolation, ridiculously obvious, and nothing that any 
reasonable person would perpetrate. However, specimens of nearly 
every one of the typical errors that are isolated and described in this 
hook may he found in the pages of photographic journals and an¬ 
nuals, in volumes devoted to the exploitation of nude photography, 
and on the august walls of international salons. 

Study of the graphic and plastic arts of the past provides the 
only proper basis for the pictorial arrangement of the human figure. 


10 


Although art in the past has revealed many strange revolutions of 
taste, there may he traced, even through the most aberrated periods, 
a constant tradition of good design. Application of this tradition 
to the problem of posing a model before the camera will lead one, 
not to a series of stock poses, but to the principles that underlie 
good posing. 

There is definite need for a hook that approaches the plastic 
problems of the human body from the photographic angle. My con¬ 
viction on this point has lately been strengthened by certain albums 
that pretended to offer advice and inspiration on these problems. 
These luxurious volumes are, in my opinion, thoroughly hypocrit¬ 
ical in their pious avowals. Such instruction and inspiration as they 
may offer lie, not in the realm of art, but in the field of biology. 
Vulgar in conception, crude in lighting, execrable in photography, 
they seem to be aimed no higher than the parlour tables of sporting 
houses. Indeed, better taste and better photography are to be found 
in some of the sub rosa publications that are denied the use of the 
mails. 

For the basic plan and method of this book I owe a large debt to 
George Bridgman, in whose anatomy class many years ago at the 
Art Students’ League I first came to appreciate the dignity and logic 
of the human body. I am also indebted to J. C. Fliigl’s Psychology 
of Clothes and to Laurene Hempstead’s Color and Line in Dress for 
valuable material in Chapters Two and Seven of Part One. 

WILLIAM MORTENSEN 


Laguna Beach, California 
November, 1936 


ll 







HThe 

A Book on the Problems of Posing 


INTRODUCTION 


Giotto’s Goat. 


About the year 1286, according to tradition, the painter Cimabue, 
riding over the hills near Vespignano, came upon a shepherd boy 
who, while watching his flock, had sketched a goat on a piece of 
slate. Amazed at the life-like quality of the sketch, so the story 
goes, Cimabue took the boy, Ambrogiotto Bondone, hack to Flor¬ 
ence with him as his pupil. The later accomplishment of this hoy, 
better known simply by his nickname of Giotto, marked a turning 
point in the development of art in Europe. 

Giotto’s goat is, so far as I know, one of the earliest mentioned 
living models in western art. The boy’s naive return to natural 
sources was a gesture significant in the history of Italian art, which 
was just then struggling against the lifeless formalism of Byzantium. 

The model is a crucial factor in the graphic arts, a factor the 
importance of which we are apt to forget. Without the model as a 
living, breathing, reacting fact, graphic art is prone to fall into rigid 
formalism on the one hand, and into undisciplined improvisation 
on the other. Through the meeting of artist and model the miracle 
of the incalculable, the impulse of the accidental, is brought to pass 
and incorporated into the work of art. Giotto’s goat is the first of a 
noble line that have made their scantly appreciated contribution to 
the world’s pictorial wealth. In going through a great art gallery, 
such as the Louvre, the Metropolitan, or the Pitti Palace, how sel¬ 
dom we give any thought to the nameless army of people “behind 


14 


the pictures , those numberless men and women, unremembered 
save as artists have recorded them in paint, whose warm and living 
presence was the stimulus that brought forth works of art. 

The identity of a very few of these models is known to the public. 
Nearly everyone who has seen the Mona Lisa knows the story of 
La Gioconda and the several years that she sat for Leonardo while 
he struggled to capture the essence of this enigmatic personality. 
Well known also is the romance of Goya and the Duchess of Alba, 
the uncouth painter and the lady of quality, and the inspiration 
that Romney derived from “frail Emma”, and the many, many pic¬ 
tures that he painted of her. We read also that the quality of Ros¬ 
setti’s work was inextricably bound up in the personality of his 
model, Elizabeth Siddal, who later became his wife. The fact that 
the contribution of these ladies, and of others who have played 
similar roles in art history, was not solely aesthetic and disinter¬ 
ested, does not confuse the issue. The sex impulse and the art im¬ 
pulse are fundamentally very closely related. Both are profound, 
irresistible, and immeasurably subtle. 

More than any other of the graphic arts, photography is depend¬ 
ent on the presence of the model. For instance, it is not possible in 
the model’s absence, as in the other arts, to work up the finished 
picture from the preliminary sketches. Nor is it feasible photo¬ 
graphically, though just barely possible, to make a composite of 
Mary’s face, Susie’s body, and Anabelle’s hands. In other words, 
the model must be there , and she must closely conform in all points 
to that which she is to represent. And when she is there in front of 
the camera, and she proves to conform physically to that which is 
desired, the problem of the model is but partly solved; for she must 
be made to understand and be brought to express that which the 
photographer is seeking to tell in his picture. 

Corpus Delicti. 

Generally the inexperienced photographer is embarrassed and 
surprised on discovering how unmanageable an apparently com¬ 
plaisant model can be. Like someone who has incautiously com- 


15 


mitted a murder, he is left with an awkward corpus delicti on his 
hands, a certain amount of flesh which he must dispose of grace¬ 
fully, but which, in his mounting panic, becomes increasingly un¬ 
manageable with his every desperate effort to do something with it. 

Perhaps he has heard that natural poses are the best. So he may 
attempt a laissez-faire attitude and let nature take its course in the 
matter of posing. But he soon learns that, photographically at least, 
Nature is an unpleasing, stupid, lumpy, blowsy wench. The artist 
in any medium is unhappily compelled to cope with the damnable 
perversity of things, but none so much as the photographer is aware 
of the utter non-cooperativeness and the implacable stubbornness 
of Nature. The painter may adjust perspectives and warp arms and 
legs into attitudes that are more becoming or compatible to his de¬ 
sign. But the photographer must take things as they are. The arms 
and legs that he deals with are flesh and bone, and are uncompro¬ 
misingly unmalleable. 

The photographer with a model is a Creator with a little bit of 
Chaos. He must learn the Word that will give it form. 

Two Types of Adjustment. 

There are two channels through which the photographer works 
in securing a desired pictorial result from a model, viz.: 

1. Physical. 

2. Psychological. 

He must first secure the desired physical conformation with his 
pictorial intent. To do this requires a background of acquaintance 
with the forms and traditions in plastic and graphic arrangements. 
He must further have a sharp eye for a considerable number of 
more or less standardized plastic faults that the unguided human 
body almost inevitably falls into, and he must know how to correct 
these faults. 

In addition to these physical adjustments, the artist must estab¬ 
lish mental contact with his model. He must lift the dead weight of 
the model by his enthusiasm. He must give of his mental energy to 
plant the thought in the physical form. He must draw forth the 


16 


expressive abilities of the model and must aid the model in shaping 
this expression to the strict physical limitations of the pictorial 
medium. 

The majority of the bad results that photographers obtain in deal¬ 
ing with models are due to their attempt to work from a purely 
psychological basis. Evidently photographers believe that if the 
model has a lofty emotion and thinks great thoughts, great pictures 
are inevitable. Ten million bad pictures bear witness to the falsity 
of this belief. Pictorially speaking, great thoughts and acute phys¬ 
ical anguish are practically impossible to distinguish, and oftentimes 
a caption is required to inform us whether the model is suffering 
from melancholia or the megrims. 

Such grotesque posturing and grimacing (full of significance to 
the model, but meaningless to the beholder) can be eliminated only 
by creating the pose on a physical and objective basis. Bodily ex¬ 
pression in pictures bears a close relation to the objective and plas¬ 
tic language of pantomime. Pantomime is not in the least con¬ 
cerned with what the actor thinks, but is very much concerned with 
what the beholder thinks that the actor thinks. Similarly, the actual 
feelings and thoughts of the model in a picture matter not at all; 
what does matter is whether the beholder is given an impression of 
thought and feeling. 

In exacting from the model this physical obedience and mental 
cooperation, the artist becomes a showman. In common with all 
showmen, his ego must dominate. There is much self flattery in 
posing a picture. The model is the means through which the artist 
realizes himself. The “Greatest Show on Earth” was not Barnum’s 
collection of freaks, but Mr. Barnum himself. Florenz Ziegfeld 
traditionally “glorified the American Girl”, hut even more did he 
glorify Ziegfeld. In a sense, art is merely a by-product of the artist’s 
quest for self-gratification. 

These two channels — physical and psychological — through 
which the artist deals with his model, are fundamental and impor¬ 
tant, and form the basis of the division of material in this book. The 
first part deals with objective physical adjustments, the second and 


17 


third parts with psychological problems of expression and procedure. 
Three Kinds of Models. 

The photographer will find, in his association with models, that 
there are three different conditions of working. It is necessary to 
understand and discriminate between these three conditions, as 
each is fitted to a distinct type of model and each results in a differ¬ 
ent type of picture. These are the three conditions: 

1. The artist is dominant. 

2. The model is dominant. 

3. There is cooperation between the two. 

Although an experienced and accomplished model may be able 

to adapt himself or herself to any of these three conditions of work¬ 
ing, the three conditions demand three different types of model, with 
widely different equipment and qualifications. These three types 
we may for brevity’s sake designate as follows: 

1. The passive type. 

2. The personal type. 

3. The cooperative type. 

In order to get the best work out of models, it is necessary to 
appreciate the qualities of the three different types, to be able to 
choose them according to type, and to understand the different sort 
of treatment that each type requires. Discussion of these matters 
will be found in Part Three. 

“The World Without Clothes 99 . 

But with physical adjustments and with psychological problems 
with passive, personal or cooperative models, the basis of it all 
remains the physical human body. The plastic element is the basic 
pictorial element. If the plastic element is missing, or is wrongly 
handled, the picture will he a poor thing, no matter how carefully 
thought out or how truly felt it may be. The medium of expression 
is the body, and it is of the utmost importance to learn to deal with 
this very concrete problem. 

Many photographers never have occasion to deal with unclothed 


18 


models. But under all clothes lies the nude human body. Clothes 
are conditioned and determined by the body that wears them. The 
posing of the clothed body may be fully understood only in terms 
of the conformation of the nude body. Therefore, emphasis will be 
given in the following pages to the posing of the nude, with con¬ 
siderable attention to the anatomical approach. Even though he 
does not intend to specialize in this field, a certain amount of experi¬ 
ence in photographing the nude is most advantageous to anyone 
going into pictorial work. The portraitist also can profit by such 
experience: he can no doubt more becomingly arrange Mrs. Mount- 
ford-Jones if his mind can clearly picture just how Mrs. Mountford- 
Jones is constituted underneath her expensive gown. 

Such familiarity with the body breeds, not contempt, but rather 
a wholesome acceptance of the normal. Instead of an object of 
prurient curiosity, the nude body becomes, by familiarity, merely 
the plastic basis of pictorial art. 

That Which is in Front of the Camera. 

Photographers have for a long time been gazing with hypnotic 
absorption at this mechanical-optical marvel, the camera. Let them 
lift their eyes and consider that which is in front of the camera. 
There waits the model—Mona Lisa in the person of Mary Jones. 
What are they going to do with her? It would be well if photograph¬ 
ers could forget for a while the expensive camera and its marvelous 
insides and the impressive array of chemicals in the closet under the 
stairs, and concentrate solely and definitely on the model. For it 
is through the model—whether it be a goat or a duchess—that life is 
made to stir in the dead substance of the picture. 


19 


PART ONE 


The Physical Basis 


CHAPTER ONE 


The Problem 


The first section of this book will deal with the physical aspects 
of the problem of posing a model before the camera. Many ques¬ 
tions arise in posing that are of a purely mechanical nature. These 
are best understood and most readily solved if they are studied from 
an entirely objective, impersonal angle. 

We are by habit so prone to assume and admit into considera¬ 
tion the personality and emotional qualities of the model that it is 
rather difficult to acquire the requisite objective and disinterested 
attitude. Personality and emotion are important matters in pictorial 
representation; but at this point they are irrelevant and misleading. 
Personality and emotion can realize themselves only on an adequate 
plastic basis. Until the body can be made to furnish this proper 
plastic basis, it is futile to try to progress beyond it. 

The Mechanical Approach. 

The peculiar object pictured in Fig. 1 is what artists call a “lay 
figure”. It is a fully articulated and adjustable wooden manikin. 
In the absence of a living model, artists use such a figure to check 
and study poses. 

For the purposes of the first part of this book, our model, Mary 


20 



Figure 1 


Jones, will be regarded merely as a lay figure. A more delicately 
articulated lay figure, no doubt, but needing just as much mechanical 
adjustment. Until the proper adjustments are made, Mary is just as 
disorganized physically as the manikin here illustrated. We are not 
for a moment concerned with what Mary thinks or feels, but merely 
with the mechanical adjustment and plastic relationships of her 
articulated members. The fundamental faults that occur in posing 
have nothing to do with expression: they are simply had design. 

Negative Precepts . 

The study of the plastic relationships of the body will be treated 
principally in negative terms—in terms of errors to avoid. The 
reason for this approach is easily understood and justified. 


21 


The fluidity of the human hody is infinite. With the same model 
on two successive days it is utterly impossible to duplicate a pose. 
Hard-and-fast positive suggestions would definitely limit one’s appre¬ 
ciation of the plastic potentialities of the human body. 

Faults in posing, however, are concrete. They are readily pointed 
out, and are easily identified and classified. They are the logical 
angle of approach to the problem. The standard which is assumed 
in pointing out these errors is that of traditional usage and generally 
accepted ideas of grace and harmony in the older graphic arts. 

As will appear in the following pages, these faults are fairly nu¬ 
merous. Obviously, there are practical difficulties involved in avoid¬ 
ing all errors—or traces of them, at least—under the actual condi¬ 
tions of working. Avoidance of one error may lead into another. 
There is also the possibility, which will be later discussed, that cer¬ 
tain errors may be intentionally introduced for the sake of greater 
emphasis or emotional effect. 

It should be understood in advance that the errors which we are 
about to consider, although all unpleasant, are not of equal serious¬ 
ness. 

There are, roughly speaking, two grades of errors. There are 
primary errors that violate basic plastic laws. These must be avoided 
under all circumstances. There are also secondary errors which pro¬ 
duce unpleasant disturbances in the picture. So far as possible, 
these should be avoided likewise, but their occurrence is sometimes 
inevitable. If they do not occur too conspicuously or too numer¬ 
ously, they may be tolerated. 

We will consider in turn the plastic qualities of each part of the 
body, and note the errors that are likely to arise in posing it. In 
Chapter Six we will classify these errors along the lines indicated 
above. 

Correcting Errors. 

In photographic practice there are three different stages at which 
errors in posing may be detected and dealt with by correction or 
elimination. 


22 


1. At the time of the sitting. 

2. In checking over the proofs. 

3. In subjecting the negative to Projection control or 
other control methods. 

1. It is at the time of the sitting, of course, that the largest 
amount of work takes place, both in the positive creation of a plastic 
composition and in the negative elimination of errors. 

2. Errors that are overlooked at the time of shooting often 
appear with shocking obviousness in the proofs. If the error is seri¬ 
ous and conspicuous, particularly if it belongs to the first class of 
errors mentioned above, the proof should be dropped in the waste 
basket without further ado. 

3. Occasionally an error that appears in the proof may he cor¬ 
rected in the final print by the use of control methods. Such an 
error as a “trap”*, for example, may yield to Projection Control. 
With the use of the Bromoil Transfer method more extensive cor¬ 
rection is possible, and even a certain amount of structural alter¬ 
ation. 

Lighting and Structure . 

Reference will be made to lighting problems. While, strictly 
speaking, lighting and posing belong to different categories, yet 
there is sufficient relationship to warrant treating them together. 
Certain of the errors hereafter mentioned are primarily errors in 
lighting. 

Bad lighting and bad posing are similar in that they both violate 
the essential plastic structure of the subject. Lighting, no matter 
how beautiful or spectacular, cannot salvage a bad pose; but a good 
pose and structure may be irreparably damaged by bad lighting. 

The type of illumination that I have designated as the “Basic 
Light”** will be taken as the standard. It is primarily a structural 
light. Additional suggestions will be made for the use of the 
“Dynamic” and “Plastic” Lights. 

♦Chapter Three, seq. 

♦♦Pictorial Lighting by William Mortensen. Camera Craft, 1935. 


23 




CHAPTER TWO 


The Head and Face. 


The human body is a structure—a relationship of parts. The best 
posing of the body is that which best and most clearly expresses this 
structure, the relationship of the parts, and their articulations. 

The head is not an egg, though careless draughtsmen sometimes 
represent it as such. Rather, the head is a somewhat domed cubical 
mass, supported by the muscular column of the neck. The best 
photographic representation of the head will show, without harsh¬ 
ness, the well-defined planes that bound the head, and the transitions 
between them. (Figure 2.) Bad representation of the head is that 
which, by had choice of angle, distorts or falsifies this structure, or 
which, by retouching or soft focus, reduces it to a mask in putty or 
an unstructured blob of cotton wool. 

The pictorialist is interested in the head as a structural element 
of the whole figure. Hence, he regards it and represents it from 
many aspects and angles. The portraitist, however, is interested 
almost exclusively in the front plane of the head, the facade, the 
so-called human face. This plane resolves itself into a series of 
structurally related sub-planes. As with the whole head, the best 
rendering of the face is that which gives the firmest and most concise 
expression of its structure. Bad portraiture always in some manner 
violates the structure of the face. 


Angles of Presentation. 

The head rotates to right or left through an angle of about a 


24 


w< 


» 



Figure 2 

F igure3 


25 





CHAPTER TWO 



ynu idiV / a nmnonsf 
As best and most 
11 » of tlW parts, and/tli 


best 


es this 


The Head and Face 


The human 
posing of the 
structure, the 

The head 
represent it as sr 
mass, supported 
photographic repres< 
ness, the well-defined 
between mem. (Fig 
which, 1 fi had / distorts 

which, by retoiicl / soft focus, redue 
an unstructured hlol/of cotton wool. 


metimes 
rd cubical 
The best 
^out harsh- 
transitions 
ead is that 
Structure, or 
in putty or 


The pietorialist M interested in the lp^fcjf as a structural element 
of the whole figure. Hence, he r^gtfrds itpnd represents it from 
many aspects and angles. I he portraitist,'however, is interested 
almost exclusively in the front plane of the head, the facade, the 
so-called human face. This plane resolves itself into a series of 
structurally related sub-planes. As with the whole head, the best 
rendering of the face is that which gives the firmest and most concise 
expression of it* -trueJure. Bad portraiture always in some manner 
violates the structure of the face. 


An files of Presentation* 

The head rotate* to right or left through an angle of about a 




Figure 3 


25 













hundred and twenty degrees. It may also be tipped to right or left, 
or to front or back. This large range of adjustment, together with 
a considerable choice of camera angles, provides the artist with an 
almost infinite variety of aspects for presenting the head. 

For conventional portraiture the useful angles range from full- 
face to profile, with a number of intermediate three-quarter views. 
For pictorial work, the range may be extended past the profile angle 
to a three-quarter rear view. 

The primary requisite for the profile angle is, of course, that the 
model have an interesting profile. Unless the aim of the picture is 
flattery, it is not necessary that the profile be a beautiful one, for a 
startling or fantastic contour may be made the very point d’appui 
of the picture. Since the choice of the profile angle is made, pre¬ 
sumably, to display the profile, the subject should be lighted with 
this in mind. Basic, Contour, or Semi-Silhouette light is best in this 
case. Seldom is the Dynamic or Plastic Light justified with a profile. 

The use of the full-face angle depends likewise on the pictorial 
aim of the artist. For more or less flattering conventional portrait¬ 
ure, this angle is not adapted to faces of noticeable asymmetry, faces 
that are unduly round, or to faces in which the eyes are too closely 
placed. But if these aberrations are to be emphasized for pictorial 
purposes, the full-face angle may well prove the most effective. 

The profile and the full-face are both somewhat abstract and con¬ 
ventionalized versions of the face: one presents the face in terms of 
a contour, the other in terms of a map. They suggest, therefore, the 
use of the conventionalized illumination of the Basic Light. A three- 
quarter view is both more familiar and gives a completer impression 
of the structure of the head. The fullest possible rendering of the 
structural masses and planes of the head is given by a three-quarter 
angle from a viewpoint slightly below the center of the face. This 
angle gives a clear impression of all three of the principal planes of 
the head. (Figure 3.) 

Since it is less stylized than either profile or full-face, and also 
since it presents a bolder separation of the structural elements of the 


26 



Figure 4 Figure 5 


face, the three-quarter view more frequently demands the use of the 
Plastic or Dynamic Light. 

A fault that is apt to occur in using the three-quarter angle of the 
head is the split profile. A split profile results when the tip of the 
nose comes just even with the line of the cheek, projects just beyond 
it, or falls barely short of it. (Figure 4.) This effect is unpleasantly 
equivocal: the line of the cheek should be either definitely stayed 
away from (Figure 5), or else definitely broken. The eye further 
from the camera may also become involved in a split profile. The 
angle of the head should be so adjusted that this eye is either defi¬ 
nitely included or unmistakably excluded. Avoid having mere eye¬ 
lashes or a slight fragment of the eye project beyond the bridge of 
the nose. (Figure 4.) With the three-quarter view mentioned above, 
in which the nose definitely breaks the line of the cheek, it is gen¬ 
erally necessary, in order to include a proper amount of the eye, 
either to raise the camera slightly or to tip the head slightly toward 


27 












Figure 6 Figure 7 


the camera. (Figure 6.) An analogous fault occurs when the ex¬ 
treme tip of the ear projects past the temple. Such an excrescence 
may sometimes be removed from the print; but it is better to arrange 
the head so that the ear either appears unashamedly as an ear or 
does not appear at all. 

Examples of the split profile appear not infrequently in the work 
of Holbein and other master painters. Thus there might appear 
to be august precedent for the use of this angle. Painters, however, 
are able to adjust the perspective and foreshortening, thereby mini¬ 
mizing the disagreeable effect. In photography the split profile is 
almost always unpleasing. 

Another error that not infrequently occurs in profiles is one that 
we may call the cul-de-sac. This results when the chin is strongly 
turned toward the shoulder, which is presented flat to the camera, 
and the background is strongly illuminated. (The cul-de-sac is most 
likely to appear with Semi-Silhouette lighting, with which it is most 
conspicuous; but it may also occur with the Basic Light.) Under 


28 





Figure 8 Figure 9 


these circumstances, there is, between chin and shoulder, an un¬ 
pleasantly conspicuous light area. (Figure 7.) This area appears 
all the whiter for being nearly enclosed by the darker masses of 
shoulder and chin. When one looks at the picture, the attention is 
immediately sucked into the cul-de-sac , whence it has difficulty in 
extricating itself. This fault is closely allied to the “trap”, which 
will he discussed in the next chapter. 

When a cul-de-sac appears in a proof, it may in most cases be 
eliminated in making the final print. The elimination is accom¬ 
plished by Projection Control—darkening the objectionable area 
by careful “local printing”. 

In passivity, the head tends to remain balanced upright on its 
pivot. Tipping the head to right or left, or to front or back, suggests 
movement and action. A full-face view is most frequently formal in 
its implication. When the face is in repose and the shoulders are 
level, the head must not he tipped. In Figure 8, the angle of the head 
is clearly at variance with the thought of the picture. Under such 


29 







Figure 12 


Figure 13 


circumstances even a slight variation from the vertical is unpleasant. 

In such a portrait as Figure 9, for instance, it is advisable in pro¬ 
jecting the negative* to make certain that the vertical axis of the 
face is parallel to the side of the picture. However, when thought, 
action, or animation is implied, it is generally demanded that the 
head be tipped. Note that the head is tipped in Figure 10 (Wind- 
blown), although the angle is full-face. The animation of the ex¬ 
pression, the swing of the hair, all require that the head be tipped. 
If this picture is framed with the features vertical, it immediately 
becomes stiff and uncomfortable, and at the same time loses a cer¬ 
tain feminine delicacy. 

When the head is tipped, it is always necessary to compensate for 
this action by raising the shoulder on the side toward which the head 
is tipped. Windblown and Figure 11 demonstrate this compensating 
action of the shoulders. Raising the shoulder on the side opposite 
to that toward which the head is tipped—as is not infrequently done 

* “Framing” the negative during projection allows some scope for adjusting the inclination of 
the head. Adjustment at this time is, of course, subject to the same principles that govern the 
posing of the model. 


30 




Windblown 


Figure 10 


Williarn Mortensen 




Figure 14 


Figure 15 


by ill-advised photographers—simply increases the impression of 
unbalance. (Figure 12.) The model seems to lunge into the picture, 
and to be in immediate danger of falling out of it. 

Models striving misguidedly for coyness are apt to tuck in the 
chin and tip the head toward the camera. Others, seeking to express 
blase hauteur, thrust out the chin and tip back the head. The former 
effort results in exaggeration of the brow, the latter in exaggeration 
of the jaw. (Figure 13 and Figure 14.) Bad foreshortening occurs 
in either case, and both effects, except with definite pictorial intent, 
are best avoided. 

Bowing the head, in three-quarter or profile views, almost always 
creates, especially if the eyes are downcast, an unpleasantly negative 
effect. Only with one thought—that of modesty—is this pose justi¬ 
fied. Even when the thought of the picture is that of deepest grief 
and dejection, it is best realized pictorially with the head held erect. 
(E.g., Guido’s Ecce Homo,) 

It is a favorite trick of inexperienced models to tilt the head 


32 







Figure 11 


33 








sharply backward. This posture lends them, they imagine, glamour 
and fascination. (Elderly women resort to it for still another reason 
that I will mention presently.) With full-face, or nearly full-face 
angles, this pose is disagreeable, as we have just seen, because of its 
exaggeration of the jaw. With three-quarter or profile views, this 
pose should be used with discretion, as it may very readily become 
strained or melodramatic. (Figure 15.) 

Details of Individual Features. 

In general, the eyes should appear to look in about the same 
direction as the head is turned. (Figure 5.) In three-quarter and 
profile angles, the eyes are apt, when they are actually looking in the 
same direction as the face, to seem to be turned further from the 
camera than the face is. In order to correct this impression it is fre¬ 
quently necessary for the model to “cheat” by turning the eyes 
slightly toward the camera. Eyes so turned that they show a large 
glint of white suggest one of the subversive emotions—suspicion, 
jealousy, flirtation, or fear, and they should not be so displayed 
unless some such thought is meant to be conveyed. (Figure 16.) In 
portraits it is usually essential that the eyes be shown; but in pictures 
with the emphasis on the plastic qualities, particularly in nudes, an 
advantageous impression of impersonality is gained by downcast 
eyes.* 

Eyes that are abnormally prominent should not be represented 
looking directly at the camera, unless the intent is to give them pic¬ 
torial emphasis—humorous, in the Eddie Cantor manner, or tragic, 
in the Peter Lorre manner. Eyes of this sort are least conspicuous 
in a three-quarter view with the lids lowered. They may be further 
mitigated by raising the front lighting unit** a foot or eighteen 
inches. By this expedient the brows are more heavily shadowed, and 
the apparent depth of the orbit is increased. 

A different problem is presented by narrow “squint” eyes. The 
problem is in a considerable degree psychological, for people with 

*E.g., Youth or Nude Study in Monsters and Madonnas. Camera Craft. 1936. 

♦Pictorial Lighting, pg. 51. 


34 





Figure 16 


35 











this sort of eyes are, as a rule, shy and retiring, and the narrowing 
of the eyes is a defensive action which the strange surroundings of 
the photographer’s studio are especially apt to call forth. Therefore, 
it is necessary to reassure such a model and place the sitting on as 
unimposing and friendly a basis as possible. Eyes with this tendency 
are shown to most flattering advantage in a full-face view. The 
head should be slightly depressed, the chin down, and the eyes 
directed to a point slightly above the camera. The best illumination 
is provided by a Basic Light somewhat modified by pulling the front 
unit twelve or eighteen inches to one side, so that the light does not 
shine directly in the subject’s eyes. 

Tilting the head back too sharply, in a full-face or three-quarter 
view, presents a very disagreeable aspect of the nose. The nostrils 
appear cavernous and become the most conspicuous element in the 
picture. (Figure 14.) This pose is, unhappily, characteristic of a 
certain type of “art photography”. The model is registering some¬ 
thing tremendous in the way of emotion, the exact variety of which 
lies beyond the experience of the present writer. 

It is perhaps superfluous to add that noses that are strangely 
shaped should not be presented in profile, unless this malformation 
is the actual point of the picture. Such proboscidiferous characters 
as Cyrano de Bergerac, for example, demand profile, or near profile, 
for their fullest realization. 

Large and spreading ears are a characteristic and amusing detail 
in many small children. However, doting mothers frequently 
envisage their offspring’s ears as small and shell-like; so it generally 
behooves the photographer to take precautions to avoid emphasizing 
these features. Protruding ears are, of course, most apparent in a 
straight-on full-face view, particularly if too low a camera angle is 
chosen, or the sitter’s head is tipped back. If it is desired to retain 
the full-face angle, the emphasis on the ears may be considerably 
reduced by raising the camera. Turning the head, even slightly, to 
the side will also much diminish this emphasis, and in a three- 
quarter view the ears, though perhaps not shell-like, will not be 
conspicuous. 


36 


Figure 1 7 


Figure 18 


Elderly women with several chins and hanging jowls are a par¬ 
ticularly trying problem for the photographer. Most of them have 
discovered, by careful study of themselves in the mirror, that, by 
carrying the chin high, it is possible to diminish somewhat the 
multiplicity of chins and to erase part of the heavier lines of the 
neck. So, when they sit for their picture, they immediately resort 
to this (as they suppose) beautifying expedient. They accomplish, 
however, the exact opposite of what they desire. The thrust-out 
chin appears heavier and grosser than it really is, and all wrinkles 
in the neck, all over-hanging jowls, are revealed unmercifully. This 
posture also exaggerates the nostrils in a very ugly and equine 
fashion as described above. 

Instead, a sitter that presents such a problem should be advised 
to hold the head naturally erect, with the chin neither tucked in 
nor aggressively out-thrust. Raise the camera a foot or eighteen 
inches above the level of the face. Then instruct the subject to lean 




forward slightly at the waist, and at the same time to raise the face. 
In a picture taken from this angle the heaviness of the lower part 
of the face is much reduced. By leaning forward, the subject’s body 
is made to appear less bulky. For a flattering account of heavy or 
portly people, the procedure above described is the best solution. 
Figure 17 shows the subject “as is”, with the camera level with the 
face. Figure 18 was taken with the camera raised and the subject 
leaning forward slightly. 

The same procedure may be adapted to compensating for weak¬ 
ness or excess of chin. If the chin recedes, the camera should be 
lowered, with the subject’s head held erect or tipped slightly away 
from the camera. For a jutting chin and a harsh jaw an opposite 
procedure is followed: the camera is raised and the head is held 
erect or tipped forward slightly. 

A face with a short upper lip never appears to good advantage 
smiling. The unfortunate effect is further emphasized by the chin 
being tucked in. Such a face is better presented unsmiling, in a 
three-quarter view, and with the chin well up. An upper lip of 
fairly generous length is required for a smile of good pictorial 
quality. 

“There Are Smiles —” 

The smile is so momentary and fleeting a manifestation that the 
greatest of care must be exercised in perpetuating it. The majority 
of pictured smiles convey the same impression of grotesque and 
uneasy strain that we find in snapshots of people walking—with one 
foot eternally poised in mid-air. A pictured smile that is pleasing 
and that is permanent in its charm is very rare indeed. Yet, 
photographically speaking, we are every day hemmed in, besieged 
and bombarded by smiles. Acres of gleaming white ivory challenge 
us from billboards, newspapers, motion picture screens, and com¬ 
mercial portraits, and even pursue us into chaster pictorial precincts. 

We may assign photographic smiles to four different classes, only 
one of which is pictorially tolerable. 


38 


■1 



First, there is what is known as the zizzy smile. I include no 
illustration of the pure type of the zizzy smile, but thousands of 
examples may be found in screen magazines and tooth-paste adver¬ 
tisements. It is joyless and violent—a veritable explosion of incisors 
and bicuspids. 

Then there is the grudging smile. This also is too familiar to 
require demonstrating. It results when the photographer insists on 
a smile and the bedevilled subject finally yields to the extent of lift¬ 
ing an upper lip in a perfunctory grimace that does not conceal the 
resentment smouldering in the eyes. 

Third, there is the solar-plexus smile. Or, by analogy with that 
fine phrase “belly laugh”, it might be called the “belly smile”. This, 
unlike those described above, is a natural and spontaneous expres¬ 
sion, a sudden overflowing of animal joy. (Figure 19.) With an 
ebullient model a smile of this sort is very readily obtained. Unfor¬ 
tunately, although it is actually spontaneous and sincere, the excess 
and suddenness of this smile cause it to have a violent “zizzy” qual¬ 
ity. The sense of restraint and control, so necessary to pictorial 
representation, is missing. 


39 




Finally, there is the controlled smile. The physical manifestation 
is here kept within bounds. (Figure 20.) Whether or not an actual 
joyous emotion is present is of no account. What is important is 
that the expression appears to be spontaneous, appears to be joyous, 
and does not rend the picture asunder with the violence of its 
presentation. 

The smile is a pictorial element that should be used very spar¬ 
ingly. Attractive at first, it palls rapidly. The monotonous fixity of 
expression in time arouses at first passive annoyance, then active 
resentment. It is significant that smiles appear but rarely on the 
faces pictured by the great masters of the past. Franz Hals repre¬ 
sented smiles more frequently than most artists, but he was always 
careful to hold them within pictorial bounds. The famous smile of 
Leonardo’s Mona Lisa is painted with such great restraint that some 
persons have disputed its very existence. 

Combination of Faults. 

Up to this point we have regarded the various facial flaws and 
aberrations as occurring separately. Unfortunately for the human 
race, the flaws sometimes appear in groups. This greatly complicates 
the problem of compensation. “Just what”, enquires the harassed 
amateur, “does one do with a subject whose receding chin demands 
that the head be tipped away from the camera, whose large jowls 
demand that the head be tipped toward the camera, whose protrud¬ 
ing ears make a front view out of the question, and whose fantastic 
nose makes a profile unthinkable?” This question touches closely 
upon a principal cause of the heavy mortality rate of photographers. 

To seek to find by sheer cerebration the exact position, camera 
angle, and lighting that would compensate for such a combination 
would doubtless prove futile. In cases in which the photographer is 
confronted with one of Nature’s quainter jokes, the wisest and (in 
the long run) most economical procedure is for him to take a large 
number of exposures, not less than six dozen. Let these exposures 
cover all reasonably possible changes in arrangement, camera 
angle, costume and lighting. Under these circumstances the photog- 


40 



Figure 20 


41 



















rapher may reasonably hope that Chance, which has so strangely 
scrambled the features of his subject, will, for a change, work to his 
advantage and bring forth one or two poses that are acceptable. 

Sensitive Points. 

Most sitters will prove to he uncomfortably conscious of some 
one flaw, will go to great pains to cover it up, and will protest 
strenuously if it appears in the proofs. The photographer will find 
that there is much difference between his men and his women sitters 
in the type of flaw that they are sensitive about. Women, as a rule, 
are most conscious of flaws in the general effect , of faults in structure. 
Conversely, they may be aggressively proud of what they regard as 
their good structural points — a fine profile, or well - modelled 
shoulders. Men, on the other hand, are seldom conscious of general 
faults in structure. But they are apt to be very sensitive about 
details, such as small marks of age or dissipation. 

Among women, the most sensitive point, and the thing they most 
dread to show in their pictures, is obesity. This fear drives them 
into extreme and foolish measures for its correction, as I have 
already mentioned. Among men, the touchy point is loss of hair . 

Scanty liair may be somewhat concealed by a judicious use of 
“local printing” with an aperture board*. By means of shadowing 
along the edge of the hair, the hair-line may be perceptibly lowered. 

Arrangement of the Hair . 

The arrangement of the hair belongs definitely among the prob¬ 
lems of physical adjustment. Many pictures, otherwise acceptable, 
are spoiled by oversights in dealing with the hair. 

The arrangement of the hair must conform to and develop the 
anatomical structure of the head. Any arrangement that contradicts 
or violates the essentially domed contour of the skull is, therefore, 
bad. Among the confections of hairdressers the most frequent fault 
arises from failure to realize that, as the face is symmetrical, the 

*New Projection Control. Chapter Five. Camera Craft. 1942. 


42 



Figure 21 


Figure 22 



hair above it should also partake of this balance. Despite the momen¬ 
tary dictates of fashion, a woman’s hair should never be arranged 
(for photographic purposes) so that it is unequal in mass on the 
two sides of the head. Compare Figure 21 and 28. (The implication 
of movement or action, of course, allows for unbalanced arrange¬ 
ment—cf. Windblown, Figure 10.) Photographers are frequently 
obliged to use a three-quarter angle on a subject that would otherwise 
appear to best advantage in full face, because only in the three- 
quarter angle is it possible to conceal the disturbing unbalance of 
the hair. 

If the subject’s hair is black, or nearly so, care should be taken 
in arranging it so that it does not appear in large masses. If it does, 
it will usurp too much of the black area of the picture. Black ele¬ 
ments in a picture should be regarded as a condiment—essential and 
stimulating when sparingly used, deleterious and disastrous when 
used in excess. 

The size of the coiffure should not overbalance the apparent 
strength of the neck. (Figure 22.) This danger is especially present 


43 


Figure 23 


Figure 24 


with dark hair. Pictorially, blond hair is less heavy. 

A contrary danger should also be mentioned. Large women are 
apt mistakenly to affect a tight headdress. Instead of reducing the 
size of their faces, as they fondly hope, this device has a precisely 
opposite effect. The tightness and compactness of the coiffure em¬ 
phasizes the bulk of the face—and the photographic result is some¬ 
thing like Humpty Dumpty in a toupe. (Figure 23.) Generally 
speaking, a large woman will secure a more flattering picture by 
loosening her hair and softening its contours. (Figure 24.) 

The apparent shape and proportions of the face are susceptible 
to much alteration by various changes in hairdress. Wrong choice 
of hairdress will emphasize facial faults. On the other hand, these 
same faults may be much mitigated by the choice of a coiffure that 
compensates for them. In the pictorial field, the hairdress may be 
made to give effective and startling emphasis to facial peculiarities 
that a portraitist would desire to subordinate. 




Figure 25 


Figure 26 


. The following arrangements of hair will make the face appear 
wider . 

1. Hair covering the neck. If in a full-face view the hair is seen 
on both sides of the neck, the eye is forced into a horizontal 
motion in looking from one mass to the other. This em¬ 
phasis on the horizontal causes the neck to appear shorter 
and the face wider. (Figure 25.) 

2. Ears exposed. The horizontal movement of the eye in look¬ 
ing from one ear to the other emphasizes the width of the 
face in the manner described above. (Figure 26.) 

3. Hair low on forehead. Hair combed low or bangs are fre¬ 
quently advisable with a high or bulging forehead but do 
not go well with a wide face. (Figure 27.) 

4. Center part. This emphasizes width, and is consequently 
most becoming to a slender face. (Figure 28.) 

The following arrangements of hair will make the face appear 
longer. 


45 


Figure 27 


Figure 28 


1. Curved over cheeks. (Figure 29.) 

2. Combed off forehead. (Figure 30.) 

3. High side part. (Figure 31.) 

It should be further noted that blond hair has a tendency to 
make the face look wider; dark hair, to make it look narrower. 
Therefore, the above-described expedients for widening the face 
are most effective with blond hair. Those for narrowing the face 
are most effective with dark hair. 

In profiles, if the nose is inclined to be oversize, care should be 
taken that the coiffure does not place a knot of hair directly opposite. 
In such a position the knot draws attention to the nose and empha¬ 
sizes its prominence. (Figure 32.) Similarly, if the chin is too 
dominating, it should not be emphasized by a mass of hair low on 
the neck. 

If possible, advise the model against getting a fresh marcel or 
permanent wave before the sitting. A new wave is emphasized by 
the camera and always looks harsh and metallic. 


46 



Figure 29 


Figure 30 



Figure 31 


Figure 32 


47 







Figure 33 Figure 34 


If the hair is arranged in curls or ringlets, care must be taken 
that they are kept close to the neck. Failure to do so may permit the 
light background to appear between the neck and the curls, creating 
a disturbing white patch. This fault, which is akin to the “trap” 
discussed in the next chapter, is aggravated when a Semi-Silhouette 
Light is used. (Figure 33.) 

The Skin . 

One very real fault is not, strictly speaking, related to posing the 
figure, but nevertheless yields to physical adjustment in the form of 
make-up (which is more fully discussed in Chapter Eight). This 
fault is a flat white skin. This is very difficult to deal with photo¬ 
graphically, for it lacks both crispness in the high-lights and warmth 
in the lower half-tones. The best skin for photographic purposes is 
a rather dark olive containing enough natural oil to give brilliance 
to the high-lights. If the model is afflicted with a flat white skin as 
described above, it is best to apply a very small amount of cold 
cream—not enough to be perceptibly greasy, but just enough to 
insure crispness of rendering. 


48 






Butchery by Light. 

The whole basis of good posing is the exploitation of the plastic 
qualities of the human body , the clear demonstration of the rela¬ 
tionship of its parts and their articulations. 

By bad posing the structural relationships of the body may be 
concealed, distorted, or contradicted. 

There is another means by which structure may be similarly out¬ 
raged. This is bad lighting. Fundamentally good structure may, by 
means of harsh cross light, be presented as a series of violent eleva¬ 
tions and cavernous depressions. A face may he cross-hatched with 
shadows until it looks positively mutilated. (Figure 34.) “Butchery 
by light” is not too strong a term to apply to such outrages. Mutila¬ 
tions such as these are not only perpetrated, but are often displayed 
in annuals and salons as examples of good photography. 


49 







Figure 36 Figure 37 


The Basic Light furnishes a conventionalized rendering of 
structure. The Plastic Light, as its name shows, gives a fuller account 
of plastic qualities. The sharper contrasts of the Dynamic Light 
demand great care in their application, for with this light there is 
always danger of offending against structure*. 

The Neck . 

The column of the neck normally curves forward slightly. (Fig¬ 
ure 35.) Tilting of the head to the front or the rear is principally 
accomplished by movements at the atlas joint (between the skull 
and the top vertebra), and does not affect this forward curve. This 
curve must be preserved in profile angles. A vertical neck gives the 
impression that the subject is in danger of falling backward. (Figure 
36.) 

Turning the head strongly to one side produces on that side of 
the neck (between the sterno-mastoid and trapezius muscles) a 

*For a fuller account of these points see Pictorial Lighting. 


50 






“Anne of Cleves” William Mortensen 

Figure 38 


51 





Figure 40 


series of accordion pleats which are generally very unpleasant 
photographically. (Figure 37.) Occasionally these folds in the neck 
may he made to contribute to the pictorial scheme (note Anne of 
Cleves, Figure 38), but it is usually best to avoid them. The simplest 
manner of avoiding these pleats is, of course, to abstain from turning 
the head too sharply toward the shoulder. This difficulty may also 
be met by raising the shoulder nearest the camera until the unpleas¬ 
ant wrinkles are hidden. (This expedient is more fully discussed 
in the next chapter.) 

The neck is best displayed if the head is turned somewhat to the 
side. In this manner the long graceful line of the sterno-cleido- 
mastoid muscle is clearly shown. (Figure 39.) 

In profile or near profile angles of the head in which the neck 
is made an important part of the picture, such as Figure 35, it is 
generally best that the head be tipped and turned slightly toward the 
camera. This best preserves the proper relationship between the 
head and neck. Unless the head is so tipped and turned, the impres¬ 
sion is given that the face recedes from the camera, with consequent 
over-empliasis on the neck and jaw-line. (Figure 40.) 


52 



Figure 39 


53 















Two Ways of Dealing with Aberrations. 

Two factors frequently unite to plague the photographer. One 
is the vanity of his sitters. The other is the unhappy prevalence of 
deviations from facial perfection—eyes that are pinched or bulging, 
noses that are snub or humped, ears that flap, jowls that overhang, 
chins that recede, and thousands of lesser defects. How to reconcile 
vanity and defects is a grave problem. 

There are two ways in which faults and exaggerations of facial 
structure may be treated photographically. One is to compensate 
for them. The other is to accept and utilize them. The first pro¬ 
cedure is based on flattery and assumes a certain conformity to con¬ 
ventional standards of pulchritude. As such flattery is a very fre¬ 
quent aim of the photographer, this chapter has included some sug¬ 
gestions for compensating for not too gross deviations from the 
facial norm. 

But unless flattery of a fairly obvious sort is the aim, such devia¬ 
tions should be joyfully received rather than compensated for; for 
they will frequently be found to furnish the germ of good pictures. 
Aberration rather than blank conformity is the source of the greatest 
pictorial interest in portraits. The search for the revealing aberra¬ 
tion must as a rule be confined to purely pictorial work, for the sub¬ 
ject of a commercial portrait sitting desires principally and primarily 
to be flattered. Seldom does a sitter show the philosophical detach¬ 
ment revealed by Elbert Hubbard, who said of his grotesque portrait 
by Rodin: “This is the head of the true Elbert Hubbard, the counter¬ 
part of which I carry on my shoulders.” 

The photographer, unless his interest is mere standardized por¬ 
traiture, will always be on the alert to take advantage of aberrations. 
In Figures 17 and 18 it has been shown how a round and chubby 
face may be compensated for so as to yield a more conventionally 
flattering likeness. But, by taking advantage of this very roundness 
and by emphasizing a dominant feature, and to a certain extent build- 


54 



ing the picture around these characteristics, it is possible to secure an 
amusing pictorial result. (Figure 41.) Both the pose and the camera 
angle serve to stress the very points that were subordinated in Figure 
18. A final touch of exaggeration was added through “local elonga¬ 
tion” by Projection Control*. 

*New Projection Control. Chapter Six. 


55 







CHAPTER THREE 


Shoulders , Arms and Hands 
The Shoulders. 


The shoulders are much more than merely the points at which 
the arms are attached to the body. They are, thanks to the articula¬ 
tion of the collar-bones to the sternum, themselves very mobile and 
expressive. They may be hunched forward, pressed back, raised, 
lowered, or rotated. Certain temperaments and races find their most 
characteristic means of expression in the shoulders. 

Except in definitely stylized and formal portraits it is best to 
avoid placing the level shoulders flat to the camera. When the 
shoulders are turned at an angle, the one nearer the camera should 
be higher. (Figure 42.) Lowering the near shoulder (Figure 43) 
produces a very unfortunate effect, emphasizing all the worst details 
of the neck. It is often a flattering procedure to young women to 
somewhat exaggerate the lifted front shoulder. (Figure 39.) This 
procedure joins the mass of the shoulder to the face, and the raised 
shoulder conceals the evidences of strain in the neck that are apt to 
be present when the head is turned so far to the side. 

The Arms. 

The arms are so mobile and infinitely varied in their plastic pos¬ 
sibilities that it would be an impertinence to attempt to give formulas 
for posing them. However, this very mobility of the arms leads to 
numerous common errors in posing them which the amateur should 
be warned against. 

Avoid extreme foreshortening. (Figure 44.) Even without the 
emphasis that short focal lengths give to it, this distortion is generally 
unpleasant. The Baroque painters, it is true, delighted in such fore- 


56 



Figure 42 



Figure 43 



Figure 44 


Figure 45 


shortening, but they were able to present it in conventional terms 
unavailable to the camera. Furthermore, the sheer technical vir¬ 
tuosity of many of these pictures, rather than their beauty, is what 
makes them outstanding. However, there is no tour de force in¬ 
volved in getting foreshortening with a camera—a camera just as 
readily shoots an arm foreshortened as any other way. 

Right angles should be avoided in posing the body. These are 
apt to occur between the arm and the body and at the elbow joint. 
(Figure 45.) 


57 






Figure 47 Figure 48 


When the background is light, he careful of enclosed areas be¬ 
tween the bent arm and the body. (Figure 46.) Areas of this sort 
in a picture serve as traps that catch and hold the eye against its 
will. Because of being enclosed, these areas look even lighter and 
more aggressive than they really are. This is shown in diagrammatic 
fashion in Figure 47. Note that the small inner area looks definitely 
lighter in tone than the portion outside the dark ring. Actually the 
two are identical in tone. By using Projection Control, or other 
control methods, to lower the tone of the enclosed area, the offen¬ 
siveness of traps may be removed or greatly mitigated. Note that in 
Figure 48 the inner circle is much less conspicuous and apparently 
matches the tone of the outer area. As a matter of fact, in the latter 
diagram the inner circle has been darkened in tone.* 

If forced, the elbow joint may be bent slightly backwards. This 
hyper-extension (Figure 49) is generally unpleasing, and its use 
should be avoided. The skin on the tip of the elbow is liable to be 
(especially with mature models) rather coarse and leathery. This 
unpleasant characteristic is more apparent when the joint is straight 
than when it is bent. This fault is apt to reveal itself when the back 

*An example of a “trap” occurs in the author’s picture Youth. (Pictorial Lighting, pg. 37.) 
The picture would be improved if the small triangular area between the right elbow and the head 
were slightly lowered in tone. 


58 









Figure 50 Figure 51 


of the model is shown. (Figure 49.) 

Avoid cutting the arm at the elbow by some other part of the 
body or by a garment (Figure 50), or by the side of the picture. It is 
sometimes permissible that the tip of the elbow be cut off by the 
edge of the picture (Figure 51), but enough of the arm should be 
left to carry the eye around the corner. Such a mutilation as that in 
Figure 52, suggesting that one arm goes out of the picture and 
another comes back in, is always unpleasant. Somewhat akin to this 
error is the arm that comes from the nowhere into the here. (Figure 


59 





Figure 52 


Figure 57 


53.) The observer is momentarily in doubt whether the arm belongs 
to the model or somebody else. 

The observer is subjected to a similar shock when, owing to the 
upper arm being hidden behind the body, the forearm appears to 
sprout weirdly from the abdomen. (Figure 54.) 

An error of frequent ocurrence in posing the arms of a nude is 
the “stump”. A stump is produced when the forearm is hidden, or 
nearly hidden, behind the upper arm. (Figure 55.) This position 
causes the flaunting of an elbow to which, apparently, nothing is 
attached. Enough of the upper arm should be shown so that the 
structure is clear and it is evident that no amputation has taken 
place. 

Avoid any arrangement that results in the arms being crossed. 
(Figure 56.) In the following pages will be found many prohibitions 
of the cross. It is a harsh conformation, dubious in any composition, 
and, in posing the human figure, invariably ugly. The cross repre¬ 
sents a raw opposition of forces, violent and inconclusive. 

If the arm is pressed too closely against the body (Figure 57) it 
produces an unpleasant bulging of the upper arm. Generally speak¬ 
ing, any extreme suggestion of the compressible quality of the flesh 
should be avoided. 


60 






Figure 55 Figure 56 


Hands. 

Next to the face, the hands are the most individual and expressive 
parts of the body. Sometimes, indeed, when the face has been 
trained to impassivity, or has been made up according to standard¬ 
ized patterns of pulchritude, the hands may reveal a great deal more 
than the face does. Unrealized beauty may blossom forth in the 
hands, or a civilized-appearing face may be betrayed by hands that 
are lumpish and primitive. 


61 


The beauty of some hands has become a part of legend. The 
genius of Eleonora Duse was particularly revealed and is perhaps 
best remembered in the unearthly beauty and expressiveness of her 
hands in such parts as the blind girl in “The Dead City”. 

Such is its close relationship to the personality of the owner that 
the hand in primitive societies bears especial magic and religious 
significance. The particular virtue of the owner resides in the hand. 
Thus illness was treated by the “laying on of hands”. And in Eng¬ 
land the “King’s Evil” could he cured only by the touch of the 
sovereign. The qualities of a hand may survive after death; for in 
the Middle Ages thieves would burn the Hand of Glory—the pickled 
and dried hand of a hanged malefactor—to insure deep sleep of the 
residents of the house they were about to plunder. The hands are 
the vehicle of magical and liturgical gestures. Such a vulgar gesture 
as the “fico” still retains in Europe a certain magic significance. 

In view of the peculiar importance of the hands, it seems strange 
that neglect or carelessness in posing them should be so common. 
Yet this neglect and carelessness is often met with. 

A very frequent fault, and one that usually betrays the agitation 
of the sitter, consists of tangled digits. (Figure 59.) Even more 
orderly clasped hands (Figure 58) are apt to be disagreeable. The 
Romans regarded this posture as a hindrance to all kinds of business, 
and in council no man was permitted to clasp his hands. In a pic¬ 
torial composition, these knotted or entwined fingers exert a similar 
inhibiting or obstructing influence. 

The hands are such expressive members that we resent any pose 
that denies them this expressiveness. An utterly relaxed hand sug¬ 
gests either death or complete lack of individuality. Particularly bad 
are poses that leave the hands lying about in careless, accidental 
fashion, like blobs of inanimate matter. (Figures 60 and 61.) Also 
objectionable because of its flat unexpressiveness is a hand in which 
the fingers are spread fanwise. 

The hands should be posed in such a manner that the individual 
digits are clearly defined. (Figure 62.) The hand is best presented 
edgewise or three-quarters turned rather than flat to the camera. 


62 




Figure 61 


Figure 58 


Figure 60 



Figure 62 Figure 64 


63 









Figure 65 Figure 66 


The edge or three-quarters angle much reduces the mass of the hand 
and at the same time accentuates its expressive qualities. Try to 
keep the hands separate and individual. Frequently this problem is 
best solved by including only one hand in a portrait. (Figure 172.) 
If the hands are allowed to touch, special care must be taken to pre¬ 
serve the individuality of each. Note in Figure 63, which is patterned 
after Durer’s familiar engraving, the manner in which the problem 
is met. 

With the hands, as with other parts of the body, good structure 
and arrangement are subject to butchery by light. Note the clear 
presentation of structure in Figure 62 under the Basic Light. Con¬ 
trast this with the confusion introduced by the cross light in Figure 

59. 

The problem of empathy is involved when something is held in 
the hand. The strength with which it is held must be appropriate to 
the nature and weight of the object. Unless warned against it, a ner¬ 
vous model given a flower to hold is apt, instead of touching it 
delicately, to seize the stem as though it were a hoe handle. (Figure 
64.) Conversely, a substantial object, such as dagger or the just- 
mentioned hoe handle, should not be held timidly or tentatively. 


64 








Figure 63 


65 
























The Wrist. 

The wrist joints are, of course, closely related to the hands, and 
are involved in any problem concerning the posing of the hands. 
A well-arranged hand may be rendered ineffective by an awkwardly 
turned wrist. There are several common faults that occur in the 
posing of this joint. 

In the first place, avoid the broken joint. (Figure 65.) Excessive 
bending or twisting of the wrist suggests that a very unpleasant acci¬ 
dent has taken place. 

Considerations of empathy are also involved in posing the wrist 
of an arm that helps support the weight of the body. A collapsed 
wrist (Figure 66) conveys an unpleasant suggestion of inert and 
gross weight. The wrist posed as in Figure 67, on the other hand, 
implies lightness and vitality. 

Avoid cutting the wrist, either by some other part of the body, 
by clothes, or by the edge of the picture. (Figure 68.) Such a cut is 
much less suggestive of mutilation if it takes place between wrist and 
elbow. (Figure 69.) An even better arrangement of the two hands 
is achieved in Figure 70 by eliminating the cross and merging the 
lines of the two hands. 

A fault the opposite of the first mentioned is the absolutely 
straight wrist. (Figure 71.) The wrist is so delicate an apparatus, 
adjusted so precisely on its eight bones, that it should subtlely reflect 
every slight change in position of the fingers. Thus a straight wrist 
appears (especially with a female figure) unnatural as well as ugly. 
Where extreme masculine strength is shown, the straight wrist may 
be permissible. 

When a gesture is indicated, the wrist should slightly lead the 
hand. (Figure 72.) 


66 



Figure 69 Figure 70 



Figure 72 




Figure 71 


67 


















68 

























CHAPTER FOUR 


The Torse 


The torse, as described by Bridgman, consists of three major 
and approximately equal masses, the thorax, the waist, and the 
pelvis. The lower end of the sternum marks the line of division 
between the first and second mass, the navel, the division between 
the second and third. The upper and lower masses or blocks, i.e., 
the thorax and the pelvis, are fairly rigid and unchanging. The 
middle section, the waist or belly, is the principal source of flexibility 
in the torse. 

This flexibility gives the torse a considerable scope for adjust¬ 
ment and alteration. Nevertheless, the dominating impression of the 
torse is massive and monumental. Artistic representation of it must 
maintain this impression. 

The torse is the most beautifully plastic part of the body. Com¬ 
pared with this powerful mass, the arms and legs are mere expressive 
and subordinate adjuncts. Battered fragments of ancient statues, 
sans arms, legs and head, still have power to move us by the plastic 
rhythm and serenity of the torse alone. The torse is eternal, the face 
is incidental. The torse is the focus of energy, the very power-house, 
of the physical body; for it embraces the great nerve centers, the 
vital organs, the sex centers. It is inevitably the dominating interest 
in most nudes. 

Both because of their plastic qualities and because of their sig¬ 
nificance as secondary sexual characteristics, the buttocks and the 


69 


breasts have long been admired as the most beautiful parts of the 
female figure. A late Greek figure in the National Museum at Naples 
is known as Venus Callipyge, which, literally translated, means sim¬ 
ply “Venus of the beautiful buttocks”. Among more primitive peo¬ 
ples, steatopygy is often admired as a symbol of generation and 
fertility. This admiration is expressed in figurines and statuettes 
that hugely and grotesquely exaggerate these parts. 

The female breast varies widely with age, race and condition. 
Certain of these variants are unacceptable and ugly for photographic 
purposes. Among the more beautiful variants, the following may 
be mentioned: 

1. Probably the most beautiful type of all is the so-called 44 pear- 
shaped” breast. (Figure 73.) It is the type most admired in 
the Orient, as is evidenced by the frequency with which it is 
idealized in all Asiatic art. The pear-shaped contour is found 
in Japanese and Chinese painting, and in the sculptures of 
Ankhor-Vat. Rare everywhere, this type of breast is occa¬ 
sionally found in Northern Europe. Its characteristic profile 
is shown in Figure 74. It is high and full, and strongly convex 
on top. 

2. The type of breast shown in Figures 75 and 76 is characteris¬ 
tic of Western Europe. It is not so full as the type described 
above, and is flat, or even concave, on its upper surface. Its 
most distinctive characteristic is the fact that the nipple is 
above the center of the breast. 

3. The type most commonly associated with modern America 
is that shown in Figures 77 and 78. It is small, flat and 
compact, and generally accompanies a spare, athletic figure. 
It is interesting to note that the American type of breast is 
not greatly different from that idealized by the Greek sculp¬ 
tors. The latter is a little more globular in contour, but 
possesses the same symmetry and compactness. 

Unhappily, the breast is at its best for only a few years. Increas¬ 
ing weight, and the relaxing of the supporting tissues, cause the 
breast to assume the characteristic lineaments of maturity. For this 


70 



Figure 77 


Figure 78 


71 





reason, a model is rarely acceptable for photography of the nude 
who has passed the age of twenty-five. 

In addition to over-maturity, there are two rather frequently 
encountered flaws in breast structure which may unfit a model for 
posing in the nude. Sometimes the breasts are too widely spaced, 
with an unpleasant impression of muscular strain between them. 
(Figure 79.) An opposite fault is found when the breasts are 
crowded too close together. (Figure 80.) The latter condition is 
often accompanied by a bulging sternum (the so - called “pigeon 
breast”). 

The breast structure is very delicate and extremely susceptible 
to damage. Models blessed with good figures need to be constantly 
cautioned against dangerous practices. Most dangerous is the use 
of hard, tight brassieres. The only justifiable reason for a girl or 
young woman using a brassiere is for covering. To depend upon the 
garment for support results always in the weakening of the natural 
means of support. Many girls of eighteen have the fallen breast 
structure of a woman twice their age simply because they have 
tortured themselves with brassieres. Particularly revolting and 
barbarous is the practice in many boarding schools of compelling 
young girls to bind down their budding breasts with tight cloth bands 
—barbarous in the irreparable harm done to young bodies, revolting 
in the unhealthy complexes created in young minds. 

Over-indulgence in certain exercises also may prove harmful to 
the breast structure. “Chinning” on a bar is especially apt to do so; 
for this exercise stretches and lengthens the pectoral muscles upon 
which the breasts depend for support. 

Certain simple precautions should be observed in posing the 
figure in order to secure the best representation of the breasts. The 
model should be instructed to take a deep breath, at the same time 
raising the lower ribs. If sitting or standing, she should, without 
strain , hold herself erect. And, of course, avoid contrasty lighting. 
Much contemporary photography of the nude seems to he obsessed 
with the effort to display the breasts as protruding and three-dimen¬ 
sional. So harsh cross lighting is applied—with the result that, 


72 



Figure 79 Figure 80 


instead of retaining the delicacy of contour and the subtlety of 
modelling characteristic of the breast structure, you get something 
resembling sunrise in the Alps. 

A Delicate Question of Taste . 

A delicate problem (and one that must be met frankly) is that 
concerning the removal or retention of pubic hair in pictorial rep¬ 
resentations of the nude. 

The old Post-Office regulation solved the problem in its own 
manner by arbitrarily branding pictures in which the pubic hair 
was apparent as “obscene”, and by barring them from the mails. 
From the point of view of the pictorialist, the problem is not so 
simply solved. Fundamental issues of taste are involved. 

Indeed, good taste is the only thing that will solve this problem. 
A sense of what is fitting and appropriate will dictate the choice 
between removal or retention. Personally, I feel that in the case of 
nudes photographed indoors with emphasis on structure and plastic 
quality, the removal of the pubic hair is definitely indicated. Its 
retention creates a crass realistic note quite out of key with the sub¬ 
ject matter and its manner of presentation. On the other hand, in 


73 



Figure 81 


Figure 82 


an outdoor photograph of a nude, surrounded by the open air, 
lighted by the sun, with emphasis on healthy flesh and blood (such 
as Dr. Grabner gives us), the retention of the pubic hair would 
seem altogether appropriate. Its absence in this case might well 
seem artificial. 

Some Errors in Posing the Torse . 

The massive plastic qualities of the torse must be preserved in 
arranging the body for a picture. The following errors, which are 
typical and frequently met with, result from failure to preserve these 
plastic qualities. 

Twisting the body so that the shoulders are presented flat to the 
camera and the hips edgewise (Figure 81) produces a very unbe¬ 
coming result with the female body. The hips are narrowed and the 
shoulders broadened thereby, with a consequent violation of the 
essential feminine contours. Since certain contemporary fashions 
are built upon this unfeminine plan—broad shoulders and narrow 
hips—it is perhaps understandable that fashion plates exploiting 





these clothes should be so posed. But to extend this arrangement to 
representations in the nude—as I have seen it done on salon walls— 
is in the worst of taste. 

When sitting, the model should always hold herself definitely 
erect. Failure to do so results in an unpleasantly collapsed abdomen . 
(Figure 82.) As this illustration shows, the breasts also are badly 
presented as a result of this posture. 

In a three-quarter rear view the model’s failure to keep her back 
straight is made evident in the slumped and protruding scapula. 
(Figure 83.) From this angle the body, unless governed and con¬ 
trolled by a firm spine, is apt to appear as shapeless and lumpish as 
a sack of meal. 

The back is far from being the most interesting aspect of the 
female figure. As generally exhibited, it is a large uneventful area 
with few signs of structure. Yet it is extensively portrayed by modest 
amateurs who exhibit undue timorousness in coping with the frontal 
problems of nude photography. There is, I believe, only one pose 


75 









Figure 85 Figure 86 


in which the female back may be really effectively presented. This is 
shown in Figure 84. Strength and resiliency are indicated by the 
curve of the spine. The two characteristic dimples assist the impres¬ 
sion of firm muscular structure without loss of feminine quality. 
There is much likelihood, unless pains are taken to avoid it, that 
rear views of the torse will include the collapsed, leathery aspect of 
the elbows mentioned in Chapter Three. 

A very frequent pose is that of the hand on the hip. But unless 
care is taken it is possible to go wrong in even so simple an act as this. 
Unless the intent is to represent a sort of washer-woman vulgarity, 
the hand should never be placed upon or above the crest of the 
ilium (hip bone). The hand placed above the iliac crest compresses 
the waist line and causes the hip to appear to bulge in a very ugly 
manner. (Figure 85.) The hand placed below the crest of the 
ilium, however, conforms with and delicately accentuates the curving 
line of the hip and thigh. (Figure 86.) 

Carelessnes in arranging the seated figure leads to a fault which 
a student of mine has delicately designated as “the flattened fanetta”. 
Normally the muscles of the buttocks are flattened somewhat by the 
weight of the body. When recorded, however, this condition pro- 


76 













% 







Figure 84 




77 


duces an unfortunate impression of heaviness and grossness. ( Fig¬ 
ure 87.) In good painting and drawing this condition is never 
apparent, for the artist always restores the flattened curve. Photog¬ 
raphically, this flattening and consequent impression of grossness 
may be corrected by directing the model to rest her weight on the 
thigh further from the camera. Under these conditions the round¬ 
ness of the buttock is maintained. (Figure 88.) 

A related fault may be designated as the “interrupted fanetta”. 
This is apt to occur when the model sits or reclines on draperies, fur 
rugs, or cushions. Under these conditions it will frequently happen 
that a curve of the drapery, or an upward bulge of the rug or 
cushion, will interrupt or break the characteristic smooth sweeping 
curve of buttock and thigh. (Figure 89.) This interruption weakens 
the line that should be a strong structural element in the picture. 
If the curve is covered for any considerable portion of its length, 
the additional unfortunate impression is given that the hidden part 
is flattened. 

There are many faults of body and face that may be eradicated 
or compensated for, hut there is one condition that balks the 
photographer utterly. Many beautiful figures are rendered temporar¬ 
ily unavailable for nude photography by the presence of bathing suit 
marks. If these are at all conspicuous, even the heaviest applications 
of make-up are quite in vain, for the marks persist in spite of all 
efforts. (Figure 90.) If the photographer encounters bathing suit 
marks, he will, if he is wise, cancel the sitting and advise the model 
to take a ten-day course in “all-over” sun baths—or else make a new 
appointment for next December. 

On the other hand, scars and marks of operations need seldom 
prove any obstacle in securing nude pictures. Unlike bathing suit 
marks, the actual area affected by scars is generally slight. Anyone 
with fair skill in retouching can readily remove them from negative 
or print. 

Foreshortening of the torse—even to an extreme degree—may 
be very interesting and effective, provided the torse is exhibited by 


78 



Figure 89 


Figure 90 


79 














Figure 91 Figure 93 


itself. (Figure 91.) However, when the foreshortened torse is con¬ 
trasted with other wnforeshortened members, the effect is awkward 
and disproportioned. The draughtsman can get away with such 
combinations because he is able to make compensating adjustments 
of proportion. Note the pose in Figure 92, for example, which 
would be quite impossible photographically. Attempt to duplicate 
this drawing with the camera would result in arms and legs of in¬ 
ordinate length contrasting weirdly with a squat and puny body. 

The torse is particularly liable to butchery by light. There are 
three pet tricks with lighting that are repeatedly perpetrated by 
photographers who have more ingenuity than taste. These tricks 
are startling, but they all violate the basic structure of the body. 

1. The first of these is the use of a cast shadow on a white back¬ 
ground. (Figure 93.) Everyone at some time, of course, 
has taken pictures of this sort. Unfortunately, they rather 
frequently get into salons and magazines. This effect is 
momentarily startling, no doubt, but commits libel on the 


80 











SAW 


>:> A 




Figure 92 


v 


« 


81 




Figure 94 


Figure 95 


human figure. Note how the body and limbs are thickened 
by the surrounding shadow. 

2. Another pet effect involves the use of contrasty side lighting 
with a black background. (Figure 94.) This picture will be 
recognized, also, as a specimen of a type frequently met with. 
Note the strange parts of the body that are emphasized by 
this lighting, and that large sections of the body are com¬ 
pletely missing. 

3. The third of these effects, also a familiar one, consists in cast 
shadows intersecting the body itself. These shadows (of 
foliage, Venetian blinds, tennis racquets, or what have you) 
create an irrelevant pattern completely at variance with the 
pattern of the body. (Figure 95.) The subtle rhythm of the 
body is lost in an obvious and mechanical pattern no more 
significant than that of a piece of calico. 


82 




CHAPTER FIVE 


Legs and Feet 


Owing to greater flexibility, there is the possibility of committing 
many more specific errors in posing the legs than in arranging the 
torse. With the latter, the most important thing is to understand 
it as a plastic, monumental mass; the legs, however, like the arms, 
fall readily into strange and awkward patterns. 

The structure and inter-relation of the parts of the leg are most 
clearly revealed in a front or rear view or three-quarter angle. The 
beautiful relation of the inner and outer curves of the calf is best 
demonstrated in the front view of the leg (Figure 96). The straight 
profile of the leg is its least interesting angle and should generally 
be avoided. (Figure 97.) An exception to the latter rule may be 



83 




Figure 101 Figure 102 


made in cases in which the toes are extended and there is a strong 
impression of muscular swelling. (Figure 98.)* 

Reclining figures are often shown with one or both of the knees 
raised. Care should be taken in these instances to avoid right angles. 
(Figure 99.) This pose also incurs the danger of traps. This fault 
(as already described for an analogous arrangement of the elbow) 
occurs when the background is too light and the attention is sucked 

♦Note also Rope Dancer in Monsters & Madonnas. (Camera Craft, 1936.) 


84 




William Mortensen 



unescapably into the enclosed triangular white area. (Figure 100.) 
If a pose of this sort is required, the Semi-Silhouette Light should 
not be used. The Basic Light may be used; but it will probably 
prove necessary to darken slightly the trap area by Projection Con¬ 
trol (or other control methods) in making the final print. 

Elbow “stumps” have been discussed in Chapter Three. Equally 
unpleasant knee stumps are created by similar faulty arrangement. 
Bending the knee back and concealing the lower leg behind the thigh 
(Figure 101) suggests that a horrible mutilation has taken place. 
This is a frequently encountered fault. 

Often the leg is cut by the side of the picture, by a garment, or 
by another part of the body. Never permit such cuts to take place 
at knee or ankle. (Figures 102 and 103.) When such cuts are used, 
they should be placed definitely above or below these joints. (Fig¬ 
ures 104 and 105.) Another bad type of cut sometimes occurs when 
the leg is parallel to the side of the picture. If the leg is but slightly 
cut, as in Figure 106, the illusion is given of extraordinary width, 
because the mind is inclined to assume that more of the leg has been 
removed than is actually the case. In such instances, it is best either 
not to cut at all, or else to cut definitely and deeply. 

The legs, like the arms, are subject to awkward and ugly fore¬ 
shortenings. Seek, so far as possible, one-plane, two-dimensional 
arrangements. 

When the weight of the body is rested upon the knee, it is liable, 
in a manner similar to the elbow under like conditions, to hyper - 
extension. This is a very unpleasant posture, particularly if, as is 
frequently the case, the hyper-extended knee is contrasted with a 
forward-bent knee. (Figure 107.) 

The cross is a conformation that should be avoided. It gives a 
harsh “X-marks-the-spot” accent wherever it occurs, usually at a 
point where such emphasis is completely misleading. Figure 108 
shows a typical instance of this fault in posing the legs. 

Crossing the knees when sitting is a permissible and frequently 
effective posture with smart clothes. With the nude, this posture is 
particularly disagreeable if, as in Figure 109, the near leg is crossed 


86 



Figure 103 Figure 104 



Figure 105 


Figure 106 



Figure 108 


Figure 107 


87 




Figure 109 


Figure 110 



Figure 111 Figure 112 


88 











over the far one. Even with clothes, the arrangement shown here 
would he apt to prove unpleasant. The safe general rule is to cross 
the far leg over the near one. 

Unless clear separation can be indicated, avoid parallel arrange¬ 
ment of the legs. As shown in Figure 110, parallelism without proper 
separation suggests heavy ponderous limbs. Such lack of separation 
is due primarily to faulty lighting. 

Much care must be taken in placing the feet. As a general rule, 
avoid posing them so that they appear flat to the camera or pointed 
directly at it. One way they appear as great, broad flippers; the 
other, as stumps. (Figure 111.) The foot appears much more grace¬ 
ful in one of the intermediate positions. The apparent size of the 
foot is decreased by slightly raising the heel. (Figure 112.) 

The soles of the feet should not be shown. Of all aspects of the 
foot, undoubtedly the most unprepossessing and least beautiful is 
the bottom. Yet recent collections of European nude photography 
have betrayed an unpleasant and unaesthetic preoccupation with the 
bottoms of the feet—together with the southerly aspect of the 
buttocks. Avoid the pose of the foot tucked under the thigh. (Fig¬ 
ure 113.) The foot is apt to appear under these conditions as an 
unattached stump or weird excrescence. 


89 



CHAPTER SIX 


Synthesis 


In the four chapters preceding this, 1 have described and an¬ 
alysed the errors that may arise in posing various parts of the 
human body. These parts and the errors peculiar to them were 
considered as isolated and separate. In actual procedure, of course, 
the photographer has to deal with much more complicated problems 
than isolated elbows, ears or scapulas, and errors will be found to 
appear, not singly, but in groups. In this chapter, therefore, I shall 
touch on probable combinations of errors and problems relative 
to posing the entire figure. 

Up to this point no effort has been made to indicate the relative 
seriousness of the various errors that have been described. An error 
has been simply an error, whether grave or slight. There is, of 
course, great difference in the quality of the various errors. Some 
are minor distractions, and some are major violations of the implica¬ 
tions of bodily structure. To avoid too great complication in grading 
the errors, it is convenient to divide them into two classes: (1) pri¬ 
mary errors, which must be avoided at all times; (2) secondary 
errors, which may be permitted under certain conditions.* Adopting 

*For the sake of clarity, the author is here obliged to make an arbitrary division. With most 
of the errors in the list there is no reasonable doubt as to classification. Only in a few border-line 
cases has he exercised any dictatorial prerogative. , 


90 



an ecclesiastical nomenclature, one may designate the first class as 
mortal faults, offenses against the structural logic of the human 
body, against good sense and good design. The second class might 
be called venial faults, offenses which are humanly inevitable in the 
course of the day’s work, and which are excusable if not committed 
too frequently or ostentatiously. 

For convenience of reference, I herewith list all the errors that 
have been discussed up to this point. The primary (or mortal) 
errors are printed in italics. Note should be taken that this list of 
errors applies in full only to the plastic nude. Costume and drama 
are not here considered. The use of costume conceals certain errors 
and introduces new ones in a manner that will be considered in the 
next chapter. Drama, as we shall see in Part Two, sometimes sanc¬ 
tions the deliberate introduction of errors for their expressive effect. 


Table of Errors. 

Head and Face. 

Split profile (Figure 4). 

Protruding ear. 

Cul de sac (Figure 7). 

Head tipped without compensating action (Figure 8). 

Head tipped toward camera (Figure 13). 

Head tipped away from camera (Figure 14). 

Head bowed. 

Profile head tipped back —banal (Figure 15). 

Eyes wrongly turned. 

Coiffure illogically shaped or proportioned (Figure 21), 
(Figure 22). 

Curl “trap” (Figure 33). 

Flat white skin. 

Butchery by light (Figure 34). 

Neck too vertical (Figure 36). 

Accordion pleated neck (Figure 37). 


91 


Shoulders, Ai ms and Hands. 

Level shoulders flat to camera. 

Near shoulder low (Figure 43). 

Extreme foreshortening of arm (Figure 44). 

Right angles (Figure 45). 

Traps (Figure 46). 

Hyper-extended elbow (Figure 49). 

Wrist or elbow cut (Figure 50). 

Arm from nowhere (Figure 53). 

Arm sprouting from abdomen (Figure 54). 

Stumps (Figure 55). 

Crossed arms (Figure 56). 

Arm flattened against body (Figure 57). 

Spread fingers. 

Tangled digits (Figure 58). 

Clasped hands (Figure 59). 

Casually misplaced hands (Figure 60). 

Butchery by light (Figure 59). 

Faulty empathy of grasping (Figure 64). 

Broken wrist (Figure 65). 

Collapsed wrist (Figure 66). 

Straight wrist (Figure 71). 

The Torse. 

Twisted female torse (shoulders wide, hips narrow) (Figure 
81). 

Collapsed abdomen (Figure 82). 

Hand above ilium (Figure 85). 

Flattened fanetta (Figure 87). 

Bathing suit marks (Figure 90). 

Butchery by light (Figures 93, 94, 95). 

Slumped scapula (Figure 83). 

Legs and Feet. 

Right angled knee (Figure 99). 


92 


Knee traps (Figure 100). 

Knee Stumps (Figure 101). 

Cut at knee or ankle (Figures 103, 104). 

Wrong cut of thigh (Figure 106). 

Extreme foreshortening of leg. 

Hyper-extended knee (Figure 107). 

Leg cross (Figure 108). 

Crossed knees (Figure 109). 

Parallelism without separation (Figure 110). 

Stump or flipper feet (Figure 111). 

Soles of feet shown (Figure 113). 

The secondary errors all fill one or both of two conditions: 

1. They may be adjusted or corrected by Projection Control or 
other control methods. 

2. They may be tolerated at the time of the sitting if their cor¬ 
rection would lead to fresh errors or to loss of vitality in 
the pose. 

The primary errors fill the following condition: 

They are capable of correction only at the time of the sitting. 

A picture may be fairly effective even though it contains one or 
more secondary errors, if the latter are not too conspicuously dis¬ 
played. A single primary error without emotional or expressive 
justification is sufficient to vitiate a picture. 

Justification of Errors . 

The retention of primary errors is never justified with nudes of 
the plastic sort. However, the violent quality of primary errors, and 
their startling contradiction of natural structure, gives them a dis¬ 
sonant expressiveness that occasionally justifies their sparing use in 
pictures that stress character, emotion and drama. These matters 
will be considered in more detail in Part Two. 


93 



Figure 114 


An Example of Combined Errors. 

Frequently a group of errors is linked together in such a manner 
that correcting one will eliminate several others. Note Figure 114. 
This picture shows clear examples of the following errors: 

Near shoulder low . 

Arm sprouting from abdomen. 

Arm flattened against body. 

Collapsed wrist. 

Collapsed abdomen. 

Flattened fanetta. 

Arm trap. 

Undoubtedly a “slumped scapula” is present also, though not 
apparent from this angle. Of these seven clearly marked errors, five 


94 




are primary. The presence of any one of the five would be enough 
to spoil the picture. Of these errors, the “collapsed abdomen” is the 
worst, as it controls several of the other errors. Compare Figure 115. 
By the correction of the “collapsed abdomen” the spinal column is 
made to resume its function of support, the weight is taken off the 
collapsed wrist and the flattened arm naturally moves away from the 
body. The same action raises the near shoulder. The “flattened 
fanetta” is corrected by the model’s resting her weight on the right 
thigh instead of the left. The sprouting arm is simply moved out of 
the picture. The arm trap is eliminated by slightly darkening the 
enclosed area by Projection Control. The revised picture, Figure 
115, while no masterpiece, gives at least a pleasing impression of 
the qualities of the figure. 





The four illustrations given in Figures 116, 117, 118 and 119, 
contain assorted combinations of errors. Concerning each of these 
the reader is invited to ask himself, “What is wrong with this pic¬ 
ture?” in terms of the errors we have just been discussing. Wlien 
he has listed the errors, let him then consider the most simple and 
reasonable methods of correcting them. The author’s analysis of 
these pictures will be found in Appendix C. 

These four pictures may seem to present outrageous and impos¬ 
sible combinations of errors, nothing that any reasonable person of 
good taste would indulge in. They are outrageous, but, alas, not 
impossible. These four pictures have been closely patterned after 
prints that have in all seriousness and good faith been published in 


96 





recent journals and annuals as commendable examples of contempor¬ 
ary photography. 

Coordination. 

There are certain generalized faults in posing the whole figure 
that are due to lack of coordination. Coordination is the act by 
which a pose, after it is cleared of its grosser errors, is given unity. 
There are of course two phases of coordination involved in posing 
a model: 

1. Physical. 

2. Mental. 

1. On the physical side, any pose tends toward unity because 


97 




the body itself is an organism and a unit. The physical adjustments 
and the elimination of errors that we have just discussed are simply 
the means whereby the artist obtains a more nearly complete physical 
coordination. 

It is of course to the advantage of the artist to utilize the body’s 
natural tendency toward unification. Strangely enough, certain 
contemporary photographers seem bent on a perverse search for 
arrangements and expedients that contradict and violate, as far as 
possible, this natural physical unity. 

2. There is a further coordination that grows out of the model’s 
emotional and mental reaction. If the model has a clearly felt and 
conceived sense of the meaning of the particular project that is being 


98 


Figure 119 



undertaken, he or she will be driven to a more completely coordi¬ 
nated pose through the unifying power of emotion. This emotionally 
unified pose is not, as a rule, pictorially useful unless the model has 
a sense and feeling of pictorial limitations. This means of co-ordina¬ 
tion is, therefore, only available to an intelligent, experienced model 
of the “cooperative” type.* These problems will be more fully dis¬ 
cussed in the succeeding chapters. 

Coordination as Proximity. 

Coordination is more easily achieved between elements that are 
closely related in space. If one arm points to the southeast and the 

♦Part Three, Chapter Two. 


99 





other to the southwest, and the legs are similarly distributed, the 
mere physical remoteness of the parts, one from the other, makes it 
difficult to relate and unify them. 

From this fact we may derive and identify another error—the 
“error of outlying parts”. Note Figure 120. The most conspicuous 
fault in this picture is the hand so far removed that it bears no sen¬ 
sible relation to the rest of the body. This fault is aggravated if the 
hand is represented as doing something or holding an object that is 
not clearly relevant to the other hand or to the general import of the 
pose. In Figure 120 the right hand obviously does not know what 
the left hand is doing. 

This is an extreme case, but, unfortunately, not an uncommon 
one. A more subtle instance of this error is shown in Figure 121. The 
hand and arm, if not definitely “outlying parts”, are at least near 
enough to the border line to make the pose seem uncomfortable. By 
moving the hand and arm merely a couple of inches nearer the body, 


100 





Figure 121 


relationship is reestablished and the pose coordinated, as shown by 
the lighter image in Figure 121. 

In this connection it is useful to remember Michaelangelo’s re¬ 
mark concerning the design of statues. A piece of sculpture, he said, 
should be so designed that it could be rolled down a hill without 
sustaining any serious or essential damage. In other words, it should 
be compactly arranged, without any large projections or “outlying 
parts” to be broken off in the process. This same salutary compactness 
should be sought in posing the figure. 

Stress and Strain 

Coordination is also expressed as balance of stress and strain. The 
one great and omnipresent stress is the force of gravity, dragging 


101 







Figure 122 


down and flattening all things. Opposed to this, and balancing it, are 
upward-thrusting muscular and material strains. In this uneasy 
realm of push and pull is found the substance of life and of the 
constructive arts. 

Architecture is the soundest of all the arts because, more than any 
other, it is practically conditioned. If stresses and strains are not cor¬ 
rectly calculated and provided for, the building will fall down— 
which is a comment more devastating and final than any art critic is 
capable of. 

There are two general methods by which architecture solves the 
problem of stability and balance of stress and strain. Both of these 


102 


Figure 123 



methods afford useful analogies in the posing of the figure. 

1. The first of these solutions is that afforded by the Egyptians 
—stability attained by sheer mass. The characteristic form is the 
pyramid, broad-based and as firmly planted as the everlasting hills. 
The same static stability is expressed by the more or less pyramidal 
composition of Figure 122. It holds itself up against the downward 
gravitational pull by the sheer strength of its mass. 

2. The second solution is that of Gothic architecture. The pull 
of gravitation is counteracted, not by static mass, but by upward 
thrust of vital energy. The drama of conflicting stress and strain is 
openly and actively expressed. This is the basis of the composition 
of Figure 123. In less violent form, the same vital resistance to gravi- 


103 





tational pull is represented in the “line of beauty” described by 
Hogarth. This supple contour characterizes natural growth and 
resiliency. 

Another principle for posing the figure derived from architec¬ 
tural analogy is the need of support. Though modern methods of 
construction make it possible to build a balcony which has no external 
means of support, it does not look right unless some method of 
support is suggested. Similarly, in posing the figure, an overhanging 
composition cries out for support. However, in a picture the support 
does not need to be actually adequate. If the support is implied , it is 
enough. Note the overbalanced angle of the torso in Figure 124. 
In the finished picture, Wind (Figure 125), this is given the necessary 
support by extending the skirt. 


104 



“rind” 


William Mortensen 


Figure 125 


ior> 


# 
















CHAPTER SEVEN 


Costume and Costume Elements 


The Theory of Clothes 

Man is unique in that he is a clothes-wearing animal. Anthro¬ 
pologists have established that there are three motives which have led 
man at some time in his remote past to acquire the quaint habit of 
wearing clothes. These three motives are 
Protection. 

Modesty. 

Decoration. 

Much debate has been waged as to which of these motives was 
primary. Disciples of the materialistic school favoured the first; and 
Mrs. Grundy urged the second, maintaining (in the words of H. C. 
Fliigl) that clothes were simply “a perpetual blush on the surface of 
mankind”. Today, however, agreement is fairly general that, al¬ 
though the exigencies of protection and the acquired complex of 
modesty may have subsequently influenced the form of garments, 
the original motive for man’s addiction to clothes was decoration. 

And decoration is, of course, the one aspect of clothes with which 
we are concerned in this chapter. 

Behind man’s efforts to decorate himself there seems to lie an 
eternal inferiority complex. Naked man feels himself very small and 
lonely. So, through the decorative aid of clothing, he is at constant 
pains to aggrandize himself and establish himself before the hostile 
universe and in his own mind as an imposing and noble fellow with 


106 


whom it is not safe to tamper. 

This endeavor is made very clear in Emil Selenka’s well-known 
classification of types of bodily ornament.* There are, according to 
him, two general sorts of adornment: Corporal (principally limited 
to primitive peoples) and External. 

Under Corporal decoration he lists the following: 

Cicatrisation (i.e., embellishment by means of scars) 

Tattooing. 

Painting. 

Mutilation. 

Deformation. 

All these devices point to man’s endeavor to make himself into 
an object of terror and wonderment to his enemies instead of the 
frightened bifurcated mammal that he really is. 

Among the External types of decoration Selenka mentions the 
following: 

Vertical—tending to increase apparent height. The Indian 
chief’s feather headdress and the Senator’s top-hat 
both come under this category. 

Dimensional—tending to increase apparent size. In modern 
fashions a woman may wear a gown with wide epaulets 
in order to look masculine. Her husband pads the 
shoulders of his coat for the same reason. 

Directional—emphasizing the movements of the body. In 
this class belong flowing draperies and streaming 
plumes that, borne backward by the wind, emphasize 
bodily action. 

Annular (ring-shaped)—emphasizing the round contours of 
the body. Here belong such things as bracelets, neck¬ 
laces and girdles. 

Local—emphasizing a particular part of the body. In recent 
decades women wore bustles in order to stress certain 
feminine contours. Longer ago men were prone to 
give an exaggerated impression of their qualifications 
by means of the cod piece. 

*Der Schmuck des Menschen, 1900. 


107 



1 




Figure 126 Figure 127 


Ill all this we see clearly man’s effort to make himself out as a little 
stronger, larger and fleeter than he really is, and to emphasize, em¬ 
bellish and extend his bodily self. 

Clothes and Anatomy 

We have up to this point considered the body in its nude and 
plastic aspects. This is the logical approach to the problem of cos¬ 
tume, for the necessary basis of clothes is, of course, the nude body. 
The exploitation of the body, not its concealment, is the true office 
of clothes. Clothes are a demonstration of anatomy. 

In all the finest periods of costume design, there has been a strong 
consciousness of the relationship of clothes to the structure of the 
body. The structure is often exaggerated, sometimes in an extreme 
degree, but it is conformed to. In bad periods of costume design the 
bodily structure is covered up, violated and contradicted. Some of 
the very worst costume design on record appears in women’s clothes 
of recent and contemporary date. Even the conventional attire of 
the Hottentot women shows a clearer appreciation of the basic 


108 



Figure 128 


Figure 129 


principles of costume than do some modern designs implying that 
woman is a flat-chested, hipless monster. 

It is of course beyond the purview of this hook to discuss at any 
length the history and principles of costume design. But it may be 
well to indicate a few guiding principles to assist the amateur in 
assembling the “Costume Elements” that will be hereafter discussed 
and in judging the pictorial fitness of modern clothes that he may 
have to deal with. 

The basic principle of good costume design is, to reiterate, Clothes 
should conform to and express the structure of the body that wears 
them. 

Therefore, avoid contrasty or emphatic patterns, for these will 
prove to be more pictorially dominating than the body they cover. 

Hats are a frequent problem of the portrait worker. The contour 
of the skull and the planes of the face should dominate the pictorial 
presentation of the human head. Any hat is bad in design which leads 
the eye away from the basic contour as in Figure 126 or Figure 127. 


109 






Figure 130 


Figure 131 


The neck line is always a pictorially important part of a costume. 
The straight V-neck, although it appears in various periods, and fre¬ 
quently makes its appearance in modern clothes, should always be 
avoided in women’s dress. This angular formation, abrupt and harsh, 
is strongly masculine in its connotation, and is neither flattering nor 
appropriate to feminine contours. Some photographers employ the 
V-neck in taking pictures of stout women in an effort to reduce the 
apparent size of the subject. But the V-shape is unbecoming, and 
frequently defeats its intent because the extreme contrast of shapes 
exaggerates rather than reduces the roundess of the face. 

The modified form of the V-neck shown in Figure 128 is, on the 
other hand, very becoming, and quite conformable to feminine 
structure. 

The square neck line is subject to the same criticism that has been 
applied to the V-neck—the shape is fundamentally unfeminine. If 
the corners are modified, however, as shown in Figure 129, this line 


no 



may be very becoming to a model with a finely structured throat and 
firmly fleshed bosom. 

A curved neck-line is the most generally useful type in women’s 
costume, conforming well to the contours of face and body. The 
shape may vary from a shallow oval to a deep curve. A strictly semi¬ 
circular neckline is not pleasant, being too mechanical in its connota¬ 
tion. Probably the most beautiful and natural type of curve for a 
neck-line is the catenary, which is the curve described by a chain 
suspended between two points. (Figure 130.) A necklace, of course, 
falls naturally into this configuration. 

Avoid a neck-line that comes exactly at the level of the neck’s 
junction with the shoulders. (Figure 131.) This point of separation 
is unpleasant, just as cuts directly at the joints of arm or leg are 
unpleasant. 

I have already mentioned the undesirability of cutting the arm 
at the elbow or wrist, and of cutting the leg at knee or ankle. This 


ill 



point needs to be stressed in its application to costume. The ugliest 
of all sleeves is that which is precisely elbow length. The elbow joint 
should be either completely exposed or completely covered. Nor 
should a sleeve come too close to the wrist. It should either terminate 
between wrist and elbow, or, in the manner of the Medieval sleeve, 
fall far enough below the wrist to join the sleeve with the hand. 

In a similar manner, a skirt or costume should either fall definitely 
short of the knee (as in the Scotch kilt or the modern Greek fustan- 
ella), or else definitely below it (as in the classic type of ballet skirt). 
The worst of skirt lengths is at the knee or immediately above it. The 
knee structure, when presented thus isolated and unrelated, is fan¬ 
tastically ugly. Instead of knees, we seem to be looking at a couple 
of ham hocks. The days of 1928-9, when the world shuddered before 
the nightmarish apparition of one hundred million knees, were dis¬ 
tinguished by what was no doubt an all-time low in costume design. 


112 



Figure 134 


Figure 135 


However, if the skirt is raised six inches above the knee, the relation¬ 
ship of the structure of the joint to the rest of the leg is again made 
clear and the result is pleasing. 

The size of the feet is exaggerated by a skirt that is of exact ankle 
length. Either raising or lowering the skirt from this point obviates 
this effect. Although the dictates of fashion have prescribed widely 
varying lengths of skirt at different times, there is, between knee and 
ankle, only one length that is completely becoming. This length is 
determined by the curve of the calf. If the skirt is too short, as in 
Figure 132, the eye prolongs the lines of the calf with the indicated 
unpleasant implication that the leg dwindles to nothing. If the skirt 
is too long, as in Figure 133, a similar prolongation of lines suggests 
that the leg is huge. The skirt is of correct length when the prolonged 
lines of the calf are parallel or nearly so. (Figure 134.) 

The normal eye level of the observer is of course considerably 


Figure 136 


Figure 137 


higher than the bottom of the skirt. This angle of vision increases 
the apparent length of the skirt. To compensate for this effect, a 
skirt generally is cut a little shorter than it is intended to appear. 
The required amount of adjustment varies with the fullness of the 
skirt, as the effect of increased length is exaggerated with increased 
diameter. The camera, however, is frequently placed lower than 
normal eye level. It may prove necessary to slightly lengthen the 
skirt of a costume or sport dress to conform with this new angle of 
vision. 

The position of the waist-line must be related to the structure of 
the body. As described in Chapter Four, the torse consists of three 
nearly equal masses, the thorax, the waist and the pelvis. The points 
of divisions are the base of the sternum and the navel. (Figure 135.) 
In good periods these two points regulate the height of the waist-line. 
The average and conventional level is that established by the navel. 


114 





(Figure 136.) In Greek dresses, and in the derivative Empire style, 
the waist-line rises to the hase of the sternum. (Figure 137.) In 
general, any waist level between these two points seems wrongly 
adjusted. (Figure 138.) Awkward also is a waist-line which encircles 
the hips and subtlely suggests that something has slipped. (Figure 
139.) The oriental girdle, however, which crosses the back over the 
hips and falls in front to about the symphisis pubis, is very graceful. 
(Figure 140.) This form of girdle is felt as structurally logical be¬ 
cause its lines in front closely parallel the groins. 

It is interesting to note the relationship that exists (in good 
periods of costume design) between the level of the waist and the 
height of the coiffure. When the waist level is raised, as in Greek or 
Empire styles, the hair is piled correspondingly higher. When the 
low-hanging oriental girdle is worn, the hair is worn as flat to the 
head as possible. 


115 





Figure 140 


Folds and Drapery . 

The majority of costumes involve the use of folds . These folds 
are the natural result of draping cloth over the body. Appreciation 
of the value and danger of folds is necessary in the assembling of 
“costume elements”. Folds correctly placed are finely decorative. 
Wrongly placed and wrongly adjusted, they convert the best of cos¬ 
tumes into a meaningless huddle of textiles. 

Folds, when correctly used, conform to and comment on the 
structure and contours of the body, accentuating its movement and 
rhythm. Magnificent examples of the use of folds are found in the 
draperies of the Phidian sculptures for the pediment of the Parthe¬ 
non. A similarly noble use of folds appears in Michelangelo’s dec¬ 
oration of the Sistine ceiling. Note in each of these cases how the 
swing of the drapery conforms to and makes more impressive the 
bodily structure. 


116 




Figure 141 



Figure 142 


In addition to conforming to contour, the folds in a costume 
should also conform to the structural logic of the costume itself. It 
is logical, for instance, for folds to group themselves about the waist, 
where the costume is gathered by a girdle; but a cluster of folds 
half-way down the thigh would be clearly illogical. 

The necessary relationship of folds to bodily contours is dem¬ 
onstrated in Figure 141 and Figure 142. Note in Figure 141 how 
the drapery conforms to the mold of the body and the curve of the 
breast. In Figure 142, on the other hand, the rhythm of the pose is 
interrupted and thrown into confusion by the erratic, meaningless 
line of the drapery. 

A further precaution needs to be observed. When a fold appears 
in profile, take care that it is not too deep or too sharply pointed at 
the bottom. By a curious optical illusion, a deep, sharply shaped 
fold gives the impression that it cuts more deeply than the actual 


117 


I 


Figure 143 





■MM 


I 


m 




: -■ on 




m 











118 










Figure 145 


Figure 146 


contour of the body. In the sleeve shown in Figure 143, the ser¬ 
rated folds seem actually to bite into the arm. This effect may he 
overcome by making the folds less deep and angular. They may be 
adjusted at the time of the sitting, or later by simple retouching on 
the print. The latter method was used in Figure 144, from the neg¬ 
ative of which the detail of Figure 143 was taken. 

Effect of Earrings and Necklaces. 

Earrings and necklaces are not merely decorative elements, but, 
in a manner similar to the coiffure, they significantly affect the ap¬ 
parent shape of the face. For this reason they may play an impor¬ 
tant part in compensation of excessive length or width of face, or in 
pictorial emphasis on these same facial characteristics. 

Earrings for the most part emphasize the width of the face. This 
is due to stress on the horizontal movement of the eye in looking 
from one ornament to the other. This effect of increased width is 
particularly noticeable with earrings of the button type. (Figure 
145.) On the other hand, very long, pendant earrings are apt to 
increase the length of the face. (Figure 146.) 


119 


Figure 147 


Figure 148 


Among necklaces, the following designs are inclined to widen 
the face: 

1. Choker type. (Figure 147.) The effect is more emphatic 
with round beads. 

2. Short necklace with large round clasp. (Figure 148.) 

3. Numerous short strands. (Figure 149.) 

The following patterns tend to lengthen the face: 

1. A strand of medium length with oval beads. (Figure 
150.) 

2. A succession of pendant shapes. (Figure 151.) 

3. A few long strands. (Figure 152.) 

“ Costume 99 and “Wearing Apparel”. 

In an article in “The Mask” several years ago, Hilaire Hiler drew 
attention to the important difference between the two concepts 
“Wearing Apparel” and “Costume”. The former is concerned only 


120 






Figure 151 Figure 152 


121 


with material aspects of the problem: with clothes for utility and 
warmth, with clothes as a matter of ethnology, with the textiles and 
stuffs that go into clothes, with literal historical accuracy as to date 
and “period”. “Costume”, on the other hand, is concerned with 
matters of thought and idea: with the expressive values of clothes, 
with clothes in relation to gesture, with clothes as decoration, with 
clothes as an expression of national character, with the spirit and 
not with the letter of historical periods. Specialists who are anxious 
about the precise colour of Caesar’s toga and the exact circumfer¬ 
ence of Queen Elizabeth’s farthingale are dealing with “Wearing 
Apparel”, not with “Costume”. “Costume” is concerned with the 
ideas involved in these and all other garments, and with their capaci¬ 
ties for emotion and expression. 

It is from failure to make this important distinction between 
“Wearing Apparel” and “Costume” that many efforts in the use of 
costume in pictorial photography come to grief. With a rented cos¬ 
tume of guaranteed historical authenticity the photographer goes to 
work and produces an excellent topographical map of the seam¬ 
stress’ art—but very seldom a picture. In Hollywood hundreds of 
research specialists toil at reproducing with complete fidelity the 
costumes of other times and other places, and the warehouses bulge 
with the fruits of their labours. But usually in the grandiose spec¬ 
tacles of the screen the costumes simply represent an appalling yard¬ 
age of textiles, devoid of life and spirit and of any sense of the real 
meaning of the garments. The costumes seem a heavy burden that 
the sweating actors bear more or less patiently. 

In the early days of my photographic career I worked several 
years for the largest costuming company in the West. Here, I imag¬ 
ined, would be found a magnificent opportunity to secure some real 
pictures. With eleven floors crammed with an almost unlimited stock 
of magnificent and authentic costumes it seemed as though one 
could not fail to secure something worth while. But during this 
period I scored practically a hundred per cent of failures. Figure 
153 shows a specimen of my product at this time. (I also took about 
three thousand others, many of them worse than this.) Notice what 


122 


Figure 153 
Costumer s Costume 



has happened in Figure 153. We have a picture of a costume, in the 
midst of which there is incidentally included the placid and non¬ 
committal countenance of the girl who is wearing it. What the cos¬ 
tume means, or was intended to mean, I cannot at the present writ¬ 
ing venture to state. If the picture inspires any reaction at all it is 
the thought that you might lift the figure and discover a telephone 
underneath. Most efforts at using a costumer’s costume of literal 
accuracy result, as this picture has resulted, in the complete swamp¬ 
ing of the subject in the costume. 

After producing several thousand pictures of about the same 
calibre as this, it became evident to me that access to costumes might 
be more of a hindrance than a help in the making of costume pic¬ 
tures. A costume that is already made is a fixed entity and is sus« 


123 






ceptible to very little alteration without damage. It is usually made 
rather as something to look at than to move in. Materials and pat¬ 
terns are frequently too conspicuous, and there is a tendency to use 
pictorially extraneous detail. 

Costume Elements. 

Though costume forms and mutations are many, the elements of 
costume are few and simple. Structurally, costume is merely pieces 
of cloth that are variously attached to and draped about the human 
frame. The seams, hooks and buttons wherewith they are attached 
or draped are mere mechanical details, of no interest pictorially. 
With these ideas in mind I began experimenting with building up 
costumes with a series of drapes—that is, working with costume 
elements instead of with completed and assembled garments. The 
method proved to be eminently successful; the drapes allowed for a 
large measure of control, and costume could be made both expres¬ 
sive and subordinate. 

I found that a small number of costume elements would serve for 
almost all pictorial purposes. The list that follows has served for 
nearly all my pictorial costumes for several years. This list is 
offered as an example only. Differing needs will undoubtedly sug¬ 
gest changes or additions. The number of elements should not be 
substantially increased, however: a large part of the advantage of 
this method is lost if the elements are so numerous as to be un¬ 
familiar and difficult to control. Actually, all the costume materials 
hereafter listed could easily be packed in a single small suitcase. 

1. Two well aged grey monk’s cloth sacks, torn and frayed 
around one end. 

This material should be thoroughly aged. It should be washed 
several times to remove the sizing or stiffening and then hung out in 
sun and wind until it is well weathered. 

This element has frequently been used to costume old men and 
old women. (Wong: Figure 194.) The frayed edge is particularly 
apt in suggesting the decrepitude of extreme old age. (Daughter of 
Gobi: Figure 154.) 


124 



“Daughter of Gobi ” 


Figure 154 


William Mortensen 


125 





































“Lazarus ” V William Mortensen 

Figure 155 


126 





“Erasmus” 


Figure 156 


William Mortensen 


127 



‘The Outcasts’ 


Figure 157 


William Mortensen 


These soft torn rags are also used in Lazarus V (Figure 155). 
With the aid of a chain these elements may he made to suggest the 
costume of the Renaissance ( Erasmus: Figure 156.) Poverty is, of 
course, the commonest connotation of rags, and it is for this purpose 
that these elements are used in The Outcasts (Figure 157). These 
elements are also frequently used as padding to build out the shoul¬ 
ders or back under other drapes. 

2. A dark yellow brocade drape of Italian design, one yard 
wide by two yards long. 

The pattern in this element should not be too conspicuous. The 
colour chosen is rich and effective photographically. The material 
should be soft but substantial. 





“A La Gare” William Mortensen 

Figure 158 


129 


The brocaded pattern and the Italian design make this element 
particularly fitting for Renaissance costume. In Erasmus: Figure 
156, for instance, it serves to suggest a doublet. With female figures 
it may be used as a rather heavy and voluptuous shoulder drape, or 
it may be pinned in front to form an elaborate bodice. When con¬ 
fused in folds the brocaded pattern may suggest the quaint, nonde¬ 
script design of a shawl. (A la Gare: Figure 158). Or, reversed, it 
may be used as an outer dress or apron, as in Woman of Languedoc. 
(Figure 163.) 

3. Two pieces of black velvet, the smaller twelve by eighteen 
inches, the larger one yard by two yards. 

The smaller one, variously folded and shaped, is used for Medie¬ 
val and Renaissance headdresses and caps. ( Erasmus: Figure 156.) 
A frequent incidental use of this small piece of velvet is to fill in 
the disturbing open triangle that occurs between the body and arms 
when the elbows are spread. The larger piece may be used for build¬ 
ing a bodice or as a shoulder drape. It is also of sufficient size to be 
used as a black background for a bead study when desired. 

4. An old fur neckpiece. 

This is useful in adding characteristic details of fur to Renais¬ 
sance costumes. Note its use in Erasmus. With a little variation, it 
may he converted into a collar, a turban, or a Cossack hat. 

5. Three scarfs of rather elaborate or even gaudy pattern. 

These are used in small sections where an accent of detail is de¬ 
sired. Such accents should be carefully placed with relation to the 
structure of the body. These scarfs may serve for Gypsy or Oriental 
headdresses, for girdles about the waist, or even for constructing a 
bodice. Note their use in Stamboul (girdle),* or Flemish Maid 
(headdress) (Figure 159.) 

6. One woman’s under-dress combining petticoat and bod¬ 
ice. Its colour should be just off white. 

One long-sleeved blouse of unbleached muslin, with a 
round, gathered neck. 

These are the only two actual garments included in the list. But 

*In Monsters & Madonnas. 


130 



‘Flemish Maid” 


Williarn Mortensen 


Figure 159 


they are both sufficiently generalized in form and free from sugges¬ 
tion of period to admit of the extremest manipulation. The sleeve9 
of the blouse may be tucked up or allowed to hang loose. The draw¬ 
string in the neck permits of further adjustment; it may be loosened 
till the shoulder is uncovered (Adelita*), or it may be closely drawn 
(Flemish Maid , Figure 159). 

With the addition of distinctive details, the long under-dress 
may be made to serve as the basic garment for peasant types from 
all parts of the world, oriental women from North Africa and the 
Levant, peasant girls from Central and North Europe, Mexicans and 
South American Indians. This garment was used for Woman of 
Languedoc. It has also been found useful for direct and simple por¬ 
traits of young girls. The round neck-line is very flattering and 
carries out the suggesiton of youth. 

7. Three grey drapes, each 40 inches wide and 2 yards long. 

These have served for skirts and have also contributed to oriental 

costumes in several religious subjects. (Lazarus III: Figure 160.) 

8. Three pieces of ivory coloured lace. Two of these are 6 
inches in width and 18 inches long, and the third is 12 
inches wide and a yard long. 

The smaller pieces of lace may be used for delicate headdresses 
on women, and the larger one for a mantilla. They also may be 
employed in the construction of bodices of various periods and 
places. With the addition of a little starch and a drawstring the 
lace may be converted into a ruff for Elizabethan or Dutch costumes. 
The lace may also be used, like the scarfs listed in (5), as an accent 
of detail. 

9. Several items of hand-wrought jewelry. 

Excellent costume jewelry for photographic purposes may be 
made from plastic clay and painted with bronze gilt. Useful items 
may also be gleaned from the counters of the “Five and Ten”. The 
following list is adequate for most purposes: 

♦Pictorial Lighting, p. 77. 


132 




“ Lazarus” III 


William Mortensen 


Figure 160 


133 




Two necklaces, one of the choker type, one long enough to 
make a double chain. 

Two rings of good size. 

Several glass bracelets. 

Two brass wristlets. 

Two heavy buckles. 

One heavy gilt or bronze chain, two feet long. 

This completes the list of costume elements. I have on occasion 
used numerous other costume items for specific effect—Spanish 
shawls, daggers, small “hand properties”, etc. These are not in¬ 
cluded in the list as they are not sufficiently generalized to be 
regarded as elements. 

There are a few purposes for which these costume elements 
will not prove of use. Military costume, of course, demands accuracy 
of detail: such accuracy is, as a matter of fact, the very essence of 
military costume. But accuracy of this sort is rarely pictorial. 
Costume in a picture should be generalized and universal. In creat¬ 
ing a Medieval costume, for example, from the elements listed above, 
we do not strive to reproduce a particular dress that was worn in a 
particular place on a particular day in the year 1259. Rather the 
effort is to suggest, with as few elements as possible and with as 
little literal detail as possible, the general feeling of the period. 

Using the Elements. 

One who uses these costume elements for the first time will 
probably be discouraged by their appearance. Their colour is un¬ 
interesting, and to the naked eye they clearly reveal their miscel¬ 
laneous origin. Learn to regard them photographically , in terms of 
greys and halftones. Examine the costume frequently, during the 
course of its construction, through the blue or blue-gray mono¬ 
chromatic structure filter*, and in the ground glass of the camera. 

*A fairly satisfactory viewing filter may be made from the Pot Blue Sheet Glass which is carried 
in stock by large glass or chemical supply houses. Libbey-Owens-Ford Co. manufactures what is 
known as Dark Blue Plate Glass, which will also serve the purpose. These two materials cost from 
25c to 50c for a four inch square. They are not completely monochromatic, but will give reasonable 
satisfaction in practice. 

The reader will of course understand that the viewing glass or structure filter is used only before 
the eye to inspect the gradations of the subject as they appear in monochrome. It is never used in 
front of the camera lens. 


134 




Figure 161 


In devising a costume with these elements, plan it in terms of a 
few concise and significant items. Lay out the elements you con¬ 
template using where they may be readily reached. Build up the 
costume gradually, element by element. Take plenty of exposures 
of all stages: sometimes the simple earlier version will furnish a 
better picture than the completed costume. If any pose or expres- 


135 


sion looks interesting, take the picture, even though the costume 
needs adjusting. Frequently in making such an adjustment the 
desired quality will he lost. In the final stages, study the composi¬ 
tion of the elements carefully in the ground glass, make numerous 
readjustments and alterations, and take exposures of all variants. 

A couple of examples will show more clearly the manner in 
which the elements are handled. Figure 161 shows the elements 
used in Erasmus (Figure 156). They are: 

a. Yellow brocade drape. 

b. Two monks’ cloth drapes. 

c. Square of black velvet. 

d. Fur neck-piece. 

e. Gilt chain. 

f. One buckle. 

These elements were applied as follows: The yellow brocade 
was draped over the model’s shoulders and left arm, the ends of 
the cloth hanging down his back. The two pieces of monks’ cloth 
were laid over either shoulder and lapped in front to produce the 
V at the neck. The model then seated himself behind a table, on 
which he rested his elbows. At this point the draperies were more 
carefully adjusted. The chain, somewhat lengthened by a piece of 
string, was hung around the neck. The string was concealed under 
the fur piece, which was hung across the shoulders with the ends 
to the rear. Finally the black velvet, with the buckle attached, was 
folded and laid on the head. Considerable experiment was neces¬ 
sary to secure good design and interesting pattern in the cap. 

A large number of exposures were taken, with many slight 
variants and minor adjustments of set-up. 

Figure 162 shows the elements used in costuming the Flemish 
Maid , viz.: 

a. Blouse. 

b. Three scarfs. 

c. Two pieces of lace. 

d. Brocade drape. 

e. Jewelry, consisting of choker necklace and four bracelets. 


136 



Figure 162 


The procedure of building up this costume was as follows: The 
blouse was put on, with the sleeves tucked up and the gathered 
neck drawn fairly close. A wide scarf was tied about the hips. The 
headdress was built of two pieces of lace and a scarf laid over the 
head. With this much of the costume in place, the model seated 
herself and the piece of brocade was adjusted over her lap. Several 
exposures were made. The arm of the chair was then partially 
covered with another scarf and the jewelry was added. More ex¬ 
posures were made with various arrangements of the bracelets and 


137 



various positions of the arms and head. Finally, to give point to her 
gesture, the knitting needle or bodkin was placed in her hand. This 
is in reality nothing but a twig plucked from a bush outside the door. 

Small hand properties such as this are so integral a part of the 
pictorial conception that they are properly regarded as a depart¬ 
ment of costume. They are so diverse that they cannot be reduced 
to elements, but they can frequently be improvised from improb¬ 
able materials, as in the case just mentioned. Along with certain 
items of jewelry, hand properties have the ability to sharpen gesture 
and to bring it to a climax. Woman of Languedoc (Figure 163) 
would be completely empty without the basket. In Human Rela¬ 
tions *, note how the wristlet increases the power of the outthrust 
arm. A good costume is intimately related to gesture, prolonging and 
emphasizing the expressive movements of the body. 

’Monsters & Madonnas. 


138 





“Woman of Languedoc * 


Figure 163 


William Mortensen 


139 



Posing the Clothed Body. 

The advice and suggestions on posing which have been made in 
the preceding chapters have all been based on the nude body. The 
nude body is necessarily the foundation of clothes and costumes. 
Hence, in general, the clothed body is subject to the same restric¬ 
tions in posing as the nude body. An effective and logical arrange¬ 
ment of the nude figure will also prove effective and logical when 
clothed. Compare Figure 163 and Figure 164. Note that the pose 
is sound, whether clothed or nude. 

A classical demonstration of this close relationship between the 
effective pose of the nude figure and the clothed figure is afforded 
by Goya’s two well-known paintings of “Maja”. He painted her first 
nude, and later, in the identical pose, clothed. The effectiveness of 
the second painting is based on the fine arrangement of the nude 
figure in the first. 

More freedom is permissible in posing a costumed figure than 
in posing a nude. Certain faults and details that would be obvious 
in a nude figure are frequently subordinated or completely hidden 
by the costume. For example, a'full sleeve would probably conceal 
an “elbow trap”. A skirt might hide a flattened thigh or a hyper- 
extended knee. 

Nevertheless, in posing a clothed figure, it is best to work from 
the inside out, as it were. The right arrangement of the body should 
be established before details of costume are adjusted. 

Modern Dress as “Costume”. 

The study of costume is important to the portrait photographer. 
It is possibly somewhat difficult to acquire the perspective that 
regards modern clothing in terms of “Costume” rather than “Wear¬ 
ing Apparel”—to revert to Hilaire Hiler’s terms. But a portraitist 
who has accomplished this has gone a long way toward improving 
his product. He who sees clothes as something significant and 
decorative rather than something contemporary and utilitarian will 
no longer tolerate in the clothes of his sitters such characteristics as 


140 


contrasty patterns, conspicuous detail, awkward necklines, and 
many such things that vitiate otherwise excellent portraits. The 
discovery of the “Costume” quality of modern clothes will greatly 
change his treatment of them. A derby hat may be made just as 
significant as a Roman helmet, if he knows how to go about it. 

The pictorialist who is interested in costume will, of course, 
familiarize himself with the subject. If he is wise, he will approach 
it from the pictorial rather than the scientific angle. Not costume 
plates, but the work of the great painters of the past should be his 
study. By these men he will find clothes treated, not as “Wearing 
Apparel”, but as “Costume”, not in terms of utility and literal like¬ 
ness, but in terms of universal significance. And he may with a clear 
conscience borrow from them in their handling of such matters; 
for he will be but carrying on an artistic tradition that was old when 
they were young. 


141 


CHAPTER EIGHT 


Pictorial Make Up 


Not only the pictorialist, but the maker of portraits, frequently 
has occasion to deplore the quaint vagaries and apparent careless¬ 
ness of the Creator in assembling the human countenance. The 
portraitist, whether amateur or professional, discovers early in his 
career that vanity is a phenomenon of more frequent occurrence in 
his sitters than beauty; so it often becomes his task to adjust the 
imperfections left by the Hand of the Potter. 

In the Good Old Days it was the custom to make these readjust¬ 
ments by long hours spent over a retouching desk. The result of 
these sessions with knife and needle was all too often a smug and 
conventional semi-likeness of puttyish consistency. For users of 
miniature cameras such maneuvers with the negative are altogether 
unfeasible. For them, as for all portrait photographers, the most 
logical and easy method is the use of make up. 

In the photographic scheme of things, make up is important as 
an additional method of control. As such it is subject to innumer¬ 
able exuberant and tasteless misuses. But in capable hands it is a 
valuable aid to the pictorialist. Many an amateur has, no doubt, 
felt himself handicapped because a large variety of models was 
unavailable to him. However, with the assistance of make up and 
costume elements, a great deal may be accomplished with very few 
models. 

In the history of man, make up has been put to two separate 
and distinct uses that should not be confused. One type is decorative 


142 


and abstract, frankly non-realistic. This is undoubtedly the earlier, 
historically. It is frequently ritualistic in its background. To it 
belong such primitive manifestations as the face-painting of sav¬ 
ages, and also such sophisticated developments as the make up prac¬ 
tised by the Chinese theatre, by the Habima players and the Russian 
Ballet. The other, and more familiar type, is that of merely real¬ 
istically enhancing or flattering the contours of a given face. The 
former type is intrinsically more interesting to the pictorialist, but 
to discuss it with anything like thoroughness would lead us far 
beyond the limits of this book. I shall touch slightly on its strange 
problems in the section on grotesque make up. 

Four phases of make up will be discussed in this chapter: 

Straight make up. 

Character make up. 

Old age. 

The grotesque. 

In dealing with these no effort will be made at laying down a 
definitive Theory of Cosmetics. Nor does the type of make up here¬ 
after described have any necessary connection with make up for 
stage or screen. It is a self-evolved system, and has but one purpose 
—the most effective setting forth of the face in pictorial and portrait 
photography. It is specifically adapted to and designed for the type 
of lighting that I have described elsewhere* and will not work with 
the conventional contrasty type of illumination. Nor is it adapted 
to daylight use. 

The basis of all make up is the bony substructure of the face. 
The facial bones of the skull, which do not change their essential 
contours after early maturity, provide the framework over which 
muscles and skin are stretched or draped, gracefully or ungracefully 
as the case may be. In every face the contours are dominated and 
controlled by this framework. Make up must always be conditioned 
by the fundamental bony structure of the face. Whether the make 
up is slight or extreme, whether it is realistic or grotesque, it must 
not violate nor contradict this structure. Whatever alterations are 

*Pictorial Lighting. Camera Craft, 1947. 


143 



attempted on a face must affect only the fleshy parts and leave the 
osseous foundation untouched. It is failure to observe this principle 
that causes bad make up—flabby suet pudding faces with no more 
reality or substance to them than Halloween masks. Such a make 
up should be compared with an Oriental mask, which though 
grotesque in the extreme, has bone and gristle under its grimace. 

Let us, therefore, before going further into the subject of make 
up, pause to meditate Hamlet-like on the grim reminder exhibited 
in Figure 165. The principal structural points to note in the skull 
are the following: 

1. The frontal bone. Its shape varies greatly with different 
individuals, sometimes arched, sometimes flat, sometimes 
sloping. Its width is determined by the depressions in either 
temple. 

2. The orbits. Note the large area of the face that they occupy. 

3. The cheek bones. 

4. The nose. Note that the upper section only of the bridge is 
of bone. The lower changes with age and is susceptible to 
alteration by make up. 

5. The mandible, or lower jaw. This varies greatly in shape 
among individuals. With increasing age and consequent loss 
of teeth the mandible moves forward and eventually pro¬ 
trudes beyond the lower jaw. 

6. Important depressions are found beneath the cheek bones 
and in the temples. 

Study the skull well until you are thoroughly familiar with its 
proportions and structure. Note especially where the shadowed 
areas fall in Figure 165, for it is principally in these portions that 
make up is applied. 

This may seem a morbid and bleakly anatomical approach to 
the problem (especially to that of such slight make ups as we shall 
at first discuss), but it is the only helpful one. Every face, no 
matter how lovely, is built from the bone out. A girl of eighteen 
has essentially the same bony structure in her face that she will 
have at eighty. The human head is not an egg, although I have seen 


144 



“The Basis of Make Up” 


Figure 165 


115 











some retouched photographs that were based on the assumption 
that it is. One of the outstanding advantages of make up over re¬ 
touching as a means of alteration is the fact that in applying make 
up the facial bones lie right under the fingers to guide one and 
prevent one from straying into illogicalities. 

An artist in sketching a face roughs it in in the manner of Figure 
166, which is simply a summary statement of the hollows and pro¬ 
tuberances of the skull in Figure 165. Unless a face is constructed 
in this manner, solidity and substance will be conspicuously lacking 
in the final version. Figure 167 shows how the features are built 
up on this basis. 

For the various types of make up discussed in this chapter the 
following materials are required: 

Powder in four shades: 

Natural. 

Light rachelle. 

Dark rachelle. 

Light sun tan. 

Dry rouge of an orange tint. 

Tangerine lip stick. 

Panchromatic lining colour (Max Factor #22). 

Lining pencils (black and brown). 

Cold cream. 

Crepe hair (brown, black and grey). 

Spirit gum. 

Cotton. 

Collodion. 

Grease paint (Factor’s #26). 

y 2 inch soft bristle “bright” brush. 

I have made the list as short as possible. Unless you do a great 
deal of work with make up, the materials given above should last 
a considerable length of time. 

Straight Make Up. 

Under “straight make up” I include such procedures as are 


146 


Figure 166 




Figure 167 


concerned simply with effective and flattering presentation of the 
face and with the correction of faults without loss of likeness. A 
straight make up simply accepts the face as it is and makes the best 
of it. Nearly all portrait work demands some use of straight make 
up. 

There is a conventionalized standard of beauty to which the 
majority of feminine sitters wish to conform. The frequent problem 
of the portrait photographer is to bring quite diverse and unlikely 
material into line with this standard. In solving this problem straight 
make up is a very great aid. 

The first step in constructing a straight make up for portrait pur¬ 
poses is to persuade the model to remove her street make up, wash 
her face, and present herself “as is”. (Figure 168.) Thus are simul¬ 
taneously revealed the basic and inviolable structure and the faults 


147 




Figure 168 
“As Is ” 


that need correcting. This girl presents an instance of the frequent 
fault of eyes that are slightly too small. This smallness is emphasized 
by the undue swelling of the orbit above the eyes, and the insufficient 
lashes. The mouth is interesting, but somewhat pinched in expres¬ 
sion. Presented thus baldly, these faults tend to obscure the funda¬ 
mental good structure of the face. Now, to correct these faults. 

First, we darken the orbits with #22 liner and line the lower 
lid with the brown pencil. The lips are built out to a more becoming 
fullness with tangerine lip rouge. Figure 169 shows the extent and 
position of these additions. Notice that these alterations all cor¬ 
respond to the position of the shadow areas of the skull (Figure 165) 
and in the roughed in face (Figure 166). Then the shadows are 
reduced and blended with a finger slightly touched with cold cream, 
and the face powdered with the tone most nearly matching the 
natural complexion (in this case, light rachelle). The orange toned 


148 









Figure 169 
Make Up Roughed In 


rouge is blended from the nose line delicately toward the temples. 
Finally, the high lights on chin and forehead are slightly accentuated 
with cold cream. 

The finished picture, “Ruth”, (Figure 170) represents a conven¬ 
tional portrait job. The make up is small, hut it is logically applied 
and simply enhances the best in the face without any loss of likeness. 
Ortho (green sensitive) film was used in making this picture. When 
Panchromatic stock is used, the #22 Panchro lining colour should be 
substituted for the tangerine lip stick. 

It is of the utmost importance that the model remove her street 
make up and submit to being made up afresh for the sitting. The 
street make up is usually of the wrong colour photographically, and 
is illogically applied nine times out of ten. The make up given here 
follows the simplest and best known of formulas—eye shadow, lashes, 
colour on the cheeks and lip rouge—and yet in the handling of these 


149 


elements it is possible to make alarming errors and to violate facial 
structure in a criminal manner. When the face is free from street 
make up the underlying structure is clearly revealed, and one may 
proceed to construct a logical and photographically accurate make up. 

The eyes are probably the most important part of a make up. 
It is well to remember the art school maxim for painting that all 
portions that lie within the orbit (saving only the high lights) should 
he darker than the rest of the face. A delicate wash of shadow should 
he applied in the orbit. If there is a tendency to a swelling over the 
eye, it should be reduced with extra darkness in the shadow. When 
the model has dark discoloration under the eyes, do not try to cover 
it with light powder; rather make up the rest of the face in a darker 
tone to correspond to that of the discoloration. Thickness of the 
over lid is an especial mark of beauty, and if it exists it should be 
emphasized with a high light of cold cream or oil on the lid. In 
lining the lower lid be careful not to start the line too close to the 
nose: generally speaking, only about two-thirds of the lower lid 
should be lined. 

The eyebrows need especial attention. Much control may be 
accomplished by the use of a brush. If the space in the orbit between 
the eye and eyebrow is too wide the brows should be brushed down¬ 
ward; if too narrow, upward. Eyebrows that are too thick and 
coarse tend to give the face a heavy, sullen expression. Their pos¬ 
sessor should, if possible, be encouraged in careful and discrimi¬ 
nating use of the tweezers. Thinning and arching the brows gives a 
better impression of the facial structure, and at the same time 
imparts added brightness and happiness to the face. 

Coarse nostrils are a bad blemish and a difficult one to counteract. 
In such cases avoid with particular care all poses with the head tilted 
back. Red noses are an occasional problem that arises to harass the 
photographer. Liquid powder is the only remedy that I have found 
that will cope with them. 

In filling out the lips avoid too harsh a tone contrast with the 
rest of the face. An orange toned rouge is best with Ortho (green 
sensitive) film, Factor’s #22 liner with Pan. Keep away from smug- 


150 



“Ruth” William Mortensen 

Figure 170, Completed Make Up 


151 







ness and conventionality of outline of the lips. If the mouth is large, 
blend the rouge along the edges; if small, leave a definite outline. 
Thin lips should be only lightly filled out; piling on the rouge merely 
emphasizes the thinness. If the chin is weak, it may be helped with 
a high light of cold cream or oil. Never try to add a cleft to a chin 
that is naturally cleftless. Also avoid accentuating dimples or trying 
to add them when absent. 

The rouge should be applied on the cheek near the line that runs 
from the nose to the corner of the mouth, and should be blended 
delicately outward and upward toward the temples. Keep it away 
from the line of the jaw. For added brilliance of the eyes, the rouge 
may be carried clear into the orbit. Rouge tends to increase the 
roundness of the cheeks, so on extremely round, moon-like faces, it 
is best to use no rouge at all. Blend rouge carefully: it must never 
appear as a patch or spot. Apply powder sparingly, always. Too 
much destroys the high lights, wipes out modelling, and causes the 
face to resemble a carefully plastered wall. 

Once in a while the portraitist will encounter a model that from 
admiring but undiscriminating perusal of screen magazines has de¬ 
veloped a make up that it is obviously derivative and imitative. 
(Figure 171.) It is generally useless to assure such a person that 
Joan Crawford or Jean Harlow has created her own definitely stylized 
make up only after years of study and experiment. The best thing to 
do with such a model is to concede her a few exposures and let her 
do her utmost, and then tactfully suggest a change. Usually when 
she sees the contrast between a logically developed make up and her 
own inept imitation, she will capitulate unconditionally. 

Character Make Up. 

“The proper study of mankind is man.” In these words Alex¬ 
ander Pope summed up the thought, the strength and the weak¬ 
ness of his Eighteenth Century. In humanistic periods such as his, 
this intense self-interest of mankind leads to the creation of out¬ 
standing works of portraiture. Thus in England, the Eighteenth 
Century brought forth Romney, Reynolds, Lawrence, and numerous 
others whose concern was not with tricks of painting, nor with prob- 


152 


Figure 171 

The Unfortunate Result of 
Reading Screen Magazines 



lenis of Pure Form, but with human beings. So the artist in our 
century, which finds itself so curiously in tune with the crisp, prosaic 
thinking of the Eighteenth, when he turns to portraiture assumes 
often the manner of the psychologist. In our studies of character 
make up it must be remembered that the matter of ultimate interest 
is not the make up, but the character. 

Character make up is not merely a matter of applying paint 
imitatively. Strict exactness of costume, literal fitness of feature, are 
of much less importance than the imaginative quality of the inter¬ 
pretation. Interpretation, not imitation, must ever be the end of 
character portrayals. To present Lucrezia Borgia as she might have 
looked if she had consented to sit for her photograph, if any photog¬ 
rapher had had the temerity to approach her, if there had been any 
photographers in the Sixteenth Century, interposes too many ifs 
between the picture and its enjoyment. Rather a picture of Lucrezia 


153 


Borgia, since we are on the subject of that dangerous lady, should 
perhaps tell of the vitality of the Renaissance, and of the animal 
spirits, unscrupulousness, and opportunism of this famous family of 
“climbers”. Or, if you were of a mind to follow the defensive inter¬ 
pretation laid down by Baron Corvo, you might even present her as 
a vastly misunderstood lady, of thwarted haus-frau instincts. Of 
course, the picture should not stray too obviously from known like¬ 
nesses, but in any case the idea is much more important than the 
image. 

Successful attainment in this type of picture makes considerable 
demand on the model. Mere physical likeness to the ideal subject 
does not suffice, nor is it even necessary. What is required is interest, 
intelligence and imagination. Acting ability of the conventional type 
is apt to be a handicap rather than an aid. My best results have been 
obtained with non-professionals, with models of the“cooperative” 
type, described in Part Three. The professional actor is apt to 
approach the problem from a conventional technical standpoint, and 
to impose his own professional personality; the result is affected 
rather than sincere, theatrical rather than pictorial. 

The ability and qualifications of the model must always figure 
largely in choice of subject matter for character pictures. But given 
a model of flexibility and imagination, the development of picture 
material may proceed in two ways; from the model to the subject, or 
from the subject to the model. The personality and plastic qualities 
of the model may suggest certain character treatment. Or a pre¬ 
viously selected character may he adapted and interpreted in terms 
of a given model. 

In the instance illustrated, Niccolo Machiavelli (Figure 172), 
the make up plays an important but subservient part. Its function 
is to add a confirming touch of truth to an already established char¬ 
acterization. Something in this model’s lineaments suggested attempt¬ 
ing a study of Niccolo of Florence—he of the secret smile, obsequious 
and aloof, with sidelong mocking eyes that observed but did not 
commit themselves. When the psychological basis of the characteriza- 


154 





“Niccolo Machiavelli” 


Figure 172 


William Mortensen 


155 






tion was established, certain small make up changes were made in 
conformity with known portraits of Machiavelli. The eyebrows were 
covered with grease paint and drawn in narrower and more arched. 
The cheeks were hollowed by delicately blended shadows and added 
width was given to the cheek bones by small high-lights of cold cream. 
Rouging the lips for their full length emphasized their thinness. 

Beards. 

With all kinds of make up a safe rule of thumb is to go slow and 
use too little rather than too much. This is particularly true of crepe 
hair. The obvious falseness of false whiskers and mustachios is a 
matter of comic tradition. 

Two things are necessary in working with crepe hair: 

1. Careful study beforehand. 

2. Careful and slow procedure during the construction of 
the make up. 

Too many experimenters slap on a false beard with only the 
vaguest notion of what the genuine article looks like. So before 
going ahead with a make up, conduct a slight investigation into the 
life and habits of whiskers. Notice that the hair on the face grows 
in very definite patterns, and that it grows much thicker in some 
areas than in others. Notice that it grows in definite directions along 
the contours of the face and that it does not sprout directly out of it 
like corn out of the ground. Notice also that the colour of the beard 
is rarely a match for the colour of the hair of the head. 

A convincing and realistic-looking beard must be actually con¬ 
structed, a small section at a time, right on the face. A few hours 
before starting work, the braided crepe hair should be combed out 
and laid between the folds of a damp towel to take the kinks out of it. 

The first portion of the beard to be applied is the part directly 
under the chin. It does not need to be so painstakingly built up as the 
later additions, as it is hidden by the rest of the beard; but it is im¬ 
portant as a foundation. Apply the spirit gum to only a small area 
at a time, and let it dry until it is slightly “tacky” before pressing 
the hair firmly into place with a towel. 


156 



Apply the next portion of the beard across the front of the chin, 
directly above the jaw line. This portion should not be more than 
an inch and a half wide, and should consist of not more than thirty 
or forty hairs, evenly distributed across this width. When this por¬ 
tion is pressed into the spirit gum, another of similar size and width 
is added directly above and over-lapping it. With similar additions, 
the beard is gradually built from the chin upward. The adding of 
successive courses of shingles on a roof is the closest analogy to the 
process. The side portions of the beard and the mustache are built up 
in the same manner. 

Avoid a sharp line of demarcation where the beard merges into 
the cheek. This is done by making the final “course” of hair quite 
sparse. A slight shadowing with lining pencil also helps to blend 
the edges. 


157 



Figure 174 
“June” Make Up 
Roughed In 


When the heard is completed it may be combed and trimmed to 
the desired shape. 

Old Age. 

The simulation of old age by the use of make up requires a very 
clear understanding of the structural basis of the face. The hap¬ 
hazard addition of a few lines and crowsfeet (which is as far as many 
attempts in such make up go) serves but to accentuate the youthful¬ 
ness of the face to which they are applied. Such lines are superficial 
and unimportant signs of age. What is important is the loss of flesh 
and slackening of muscles that reveal facial structure that was con¬ 
cealed in youth. Such changes are not necessarily disfiguring; some¬ 
times a pudgy and insignificant face takes on dignity and power in 
the aging process. 


158 



Figure 175 
“June” With 
Completed Make Up 



In characterizations of this type, imaginative co-operation on the 
part of the model is again demanded. Much more than the manifesta¬ 
tion of simple physical tokens, old age is a state of mind. It is experi¬ 
ence, it is resignation, it is weariness, perhaps, of eyes that have seen 
too much and of ears that have heard too many foolish words. Unless 
a model can suggest this quality, the hest of make ups will avail 
nothing. 

Proper choice of costume does much to carry out and strengthen 
the suggestion given by the make up. Notice in the picture of June 
(Figure 175) how the impression of physical decay is developed by 
the few frayed rags. In the picture of Lois Moran (Figure 176) 
(which is one of a series of character studies) the idea of frailness 
and utter decrepitude is carried out by the line of the dress. 


159 



In such make up studies as those under discussion, a feeling of 
complete reality must be created, no matter how much artifice is 
actually involved. A make up that is obvious is a bad make up. The 
type of make up that I am about to describe is a kind of painting in 
three dimensions. As the marks of old age are most clearly revealed 
under the Dynamic Light, the whole scheme of the make up is 
planned with this type of lighting in view. 

In making the old age study of June (which is illustrated in its 
three stages), (Figures 173, 174, 175) careful study of the bone 
structure of her face was made, both by what the eye revealed and 
by what the finger tips discovered, so that the final result might be 
anatomically consistent. Then the skull depressions were shadowed 
with Factor’s #22 liner, as shown in the second figure. Note, by com¬ 
parison with the picture of the skull, Figure 165, how closely the 
second stage of the make up follows the bony contours. Half closing 
the eyes will accentuate the skull-like aspect of this stage. 

Then the broadly blocked-in shadows are blended and the smaller 
lines are worked in. Remember that the lines simply represent 
shadows, and must give a three-dimensional feeling. In general, 
blend the shadows toward the source of the light. The major depres¬ 
sions should be given added emphasis by carefully placed high-lights. 
These high-lights may be produced by a slight touch of cold cream 
or by light grease paint. Don’t spend too much time in developing 
small details. Work rather in terms of large masses and general effect. 
Step back once in awhile and view the progress of the work critically 
through half-closed eyes. 

When the make up is complete, the unique and indispensable 
contribution of the model comes into play. In the picture of June, 
the relaxed muscles of the face accentuate the impression of old age, 
and the heavily drooping lids make the eyes look weary. 

In making the final print, the various processes of Projection 
Control are frequently used with advantage. For example, in 
Daughter of Gobi (Figure 154), a certain amount of elongation was 
employed to emphasize the grotesque aspects. In the picture of June. 
local printing was used to intensify the illusive shadows, and, by 


160 



“The Seventh Age” 


William Mortensen 


Portrayed by Lois Moran 
Figure 176 


161 





local dodging, luminosity was added to some of the cross shadows 
resulting from the Dynamic Light. 

The Grotesque. 

The word “grotesque” comes from the same root as “grotto”, and 
is thus linguistically connected with the rites of deities that were 
worshipped in underground temples. Even today some of this sub¬ 
terranean connotation is attached to grotesque art. Though we 
acknowledge them less freely, we are still plagued with many of the 
primitive fears that afflicted our cave-dwelling ancestors. We have 
spread the light of our knowledge a little wider, but the outer dark¬ 
ness still swarms with dimly visioned shapes of dread. Grotesque art 
is a very human gesture of defiance, making faces at the great dark, 
thumbing the nose at the unknown. 

There is a definite fascination in that which we fear. And in 
representing or contemplating the object of our fear in art forms we 
are able to obtain a release from its domination. Even the most 
determinedly healthy-minded of us are susceptible to the lure of the 
morbid: the unceasing demand for mystery stories proves this. The 
Grand Guignol theatre in Paris for years provided a steady diet of 
morbid shockers. Numerous modern artists have frequently ex¬ 
pressed themselves in terms of the grotesque—Hogarth, Daumier 
and Goya. In the field of black-and-white, Beardsley and Alastair 
found the grotesque their most natural and effective vein. 

The grotesque is a field in which photography has done very 
little. Yet experiments in grotesque may prove very advantageous 
to the photographer. The constant and hampering trend of his 
medium is toward excessive literalness. Work with the grotesque 
compels him to cast aside the props and crutches of similitude and 
likeness and to give his imagination a chance. Even though he sub¬ 
sequently returns to the tight chamber of Things-as-they-are, he 
will find it occasionally thereafter pierced with windows opening 
toward the unknown and swept with winds from beyond the stars. 

The foremost exponents of the art of grotesque make up are the 
actors of the Chinese theatre. The portrayers of villains and demons 
in the Chinese drama have developed a series of highly convention- 


162 



Figure 177 
“ Sketch ” 

William Mortensen 

alized patterns of face painting, magnificent and alarming in red, 
yellow, white and black. The designs are traditionally established, 
and many of them are centuries old. Similarly traditional, though 
much less completely conventionalized, were the make ups of the 
characters of the Commedia dell’ Arte of the Sixteenth and Seven¬ 
teenth centuries. 

Collodion Make Up. 

In the motion picture field the best known exponent of grotesque 
make up was, of course, the late Lon Chaney. Rather close associa¬ 
tion with him in two of his pictures has placed me in position to 
speak with a certain amount of authority regarding his use of 
make up. He especially exploited the methods that I am about to 
describe. 

The collodion make up is a difficult process and should not be 
undertaken without due preparation and understanding. I described 


163 


the make up for old age as a species of painting for three dimen¬ 
sional effect. The use of collodion takes us into sculpture . Hence 
its use must be based on a sculptural sense of structure. Chaney’s 
make ups were definitely structural in their conception. Thus, no 
matter how extreme they were, they gave a terrifying impression of 
reality, of flesh and bone. Never did they violate the admonition 
laid down at the beginning of this chapter that make up must not 
violate the basic bony structure of the face. To be sure, the struc¬ 
ture was often tremendously warped or exaggerated; but it was 
never lost sight of or contradicted. 

Rather than experimenting haphazardly with collodion make 
up, it is best to attempt a definite problem. Study the model’s face 
carefully in advance and visualize clearly just what is to be done 
to it. A grotesque mask or a Goya illustration may serve as a starting 
point. It is also useful to experiment with sketches beforehand. 
Figure 177 was made under such circumstances. In these sketches, 
although you may improvise freely and fantastically, be careful 
never to lose sight of the basic skull structure. 

One caution needs to be given before I describe the mechanics 
of the collodion process. The solvent of collodion is ether; so, lest 
you anaesthetize your model, it is wise to work in a well ventilated 
room with an electric fan going. 

The major added protuberances are modeled in wads of cotton 
and tentatively fitted to the face. A coat of collodion is applied with 
a soft bristle brush at each point where the additions are to be made 
and the cotton is pressed into place. Speed in working is necessary, 
as the collodion dries rapidly. As each wad of cotton is attached, 
its outstanding fluffy edges are pressed down to the face with the 
collodion filled brush. After all the wads are attached to the face, 
their modelling is adjusted with the fingers. If additional protuber¬ 
ance is needed, it is built onto the cotton already in place with more 
collodion. With small wisps of cotton, each brushed into place with 
collodion, the modelling is refined and the large wads are blended 
into the contours of the face. 

In the illustrated instance, The Possessed (Figure 178), the 


164 


The Possessed’ 


William Mortensen 


Figure 178 


165 




brow was built out large and heavy over the eyes. The nose was 
built up to meet the line of the brow and was somewhat widened. 
Additional width was given to the cheek bones, and sundry warts 
and excrescences were attached. The flabby folds of the neck were 
also constructed of collodion. Two turkey quills served for the 
tusks. Collodion and cotton were similarly used in converting the 
hand into a claw. The long nails were shaped from pieces of old 
film, and were tied to the fingers before the cotton was applied.* 

After the cotton is attached and modelled to the desired shape, 
it is varnished with several coats of collodion. When the collodion 
is dry, grease paint is applied over the entire face. Considerable 
care is needed in working the paint over the attached cotton. It is 
necessary to apply the paint quite heavily, owing to the different 
colour of the cotton and the flesh. After a smooth coat of paint has 
been applied, it is usually necessary to emphasize the eyes and to 
accentuate the modelling with the lining pencil. 

In photographing such a make up, the Dynamic type of lighting 
is used in order to give the maximum emphasis to the crude rugged 
modelling. 

Body Make Up. 

For the most part, make up is a problem of the face only. But 
occasionally other parts of the body are involved, or even the whole 
body. 

Some workers, when photographing nudes, required the model 
to cover herself all over with liquid whiting. This was my own 
practice in my early experiments with the nude. But I soon aban¬ 
doned the use of whiting when I learned that it gave very flat and 
dead results, lacking crispness in the high-lights and gradation in 
the shadows. 

The use of whiting on the body, then, should be avoided. 
Rather the model should touch up her body with the smallest pos¬ 
sible amount of cold cream. This gives a healthy sheen to the skin 
and imparts crisp brilliance to the high-lights. Figure 179 demon- 

*Another example of collodion make up may be found in the picture Belphegor in Monsters & 
Madonnas. 


166 




strates the use of cold cream for this purpose. 

This procedure is also useful in photographing a subject in a 
low cut gown. The usual practice of women, when they are so 
dressed, is to carry their powder down over the throat and onto the 
bosom. However, a very sparing application of cold cream will give 
a much rounder and fuller rendering of these parts. 

Note that I have stipulated cold cream (not oil), and in infinites¬ 
imal amounts. Cold cream imparts a natural soft sheen to the skin; 
oil shines and glitters. A few years ago there was an epidemic of 
greased nudes, and one still occasionally meets examples of this 
unpleasant and freakish effect. (Figure 180.) This is an instance 
of the “Nujol nude”, which will be discussed in Part Three. Observe 
that the high-lights are harsh and unnatural, and that they appear 
mostly in the wrong places. 

It is sometimes required, for pictorial effect, to darken the 
model’s entire body. For this purpose “Bol-Armenia” or a prepared 
liquid body make up is used. The Bol-Armenia is a powder which 
must be stirred up with water before using. Great care must be 
taken with body make up to apply it sparingly and smoothly. With 


167 










Figure 180 



this type of make up the skin dries to a flat matt texture and conse¬ 
quently requires to be touched up with a little cold cream in the 
high-lights.* 

Make Up and the Hair. 

As noted in Chapter Two, the arrangement of the hair may con¬ 
siderably affect the apparent shape of the face. Hair arrangement 
is closely related to problems of make up. By using the hair to 
emphasize, rather than to compensate for, unusual facial contours, 
interesting pictorial effects are secured. In Victoria Rebecca (Figure 
181), the already considerable length of the face is exaggerated by 
the high coiffure. 

By suggestion hair may contribute much to the general impres¬ 
sion of the make up. Note, in this connection, the character of the 
hair in Daughter of Gobi (Figure 154) and in June (Figure 175). 
Observe also in Belphegor** how greatly the bristly rendering of the 

*It is well to emphasize again that body make up is of no use in counteracting bathing suit 
marks. The marks will show through on the picture no matter how thick the make up is plastered on. 

**In Monsters & Madonnas. 


168 








hair adds to the impression of bestiality. 

Anne of Cleves (Figure 38) makes use of an interesting expedi¬ 
ent in make up. Although she here appears as a blonde, this model 
actually has dark hair. The following procedure was employed. 
Her hair was first thoroughly covered with glycerine. Then powdered 
aluminum was lightly dusted on. Additional emphasis in the high¬ 
lights was secured by a little more aluminum. 

The use of glycerine with this make up is most necessary. It 
causes the powder to cling to the hair and insures its washing out 
readily. Without the glycerine the aluminum settles to the scalp, 
where it forms a stubborn crust very dangerous to the hair. 

Hair that is dull and lacking in high-lights may be with advan¬ 
tage touched up slightly with cold cream. This was done in Figure 
179. The same care must be here observed as in using cold cream 
on the body to apply it very sparingly. 

An Admonition . 

Make up is an exceedingly tricky and risky business, and very 


169 








few people have the instinct for its photographic use. Only hy a 
long process of trial and error is it possible to arrive at a firm work¬ 
ing knowledge of this subject. The trials may be many and the 
errors horrible, without doubt; but study and analyse your failures 
—and then unceremoniously drop them in the waste basket. Not 
until you have the process well in hand should you exhibit any of 
the results to your model or to your public, large or small. Don’t 
leap immediately to ambitious and grotesque extremes; the first 
test is the ability to construct a completely natural looking straight 
make up. When you have gained this ability you will have definitely 
added to your range of photographic control. 


170 


PART TWO 


The Model As An Expressive Element 


“Being” and “Meaning”. 

In Part One we considered the model merely as form , without 
any meaning beyond the fact that it was a human body. Form— 
firm, substantial and well-organized—is essential in all pictures; 
hut form without meaning is mere geometry. Mere graceful attitudes 
assumed by the model do not create pictures. There must be 
meaning beyond the mere physical fact of the model and beyond 
the conformation of her limbs and body. A model as part of a 
picture not only is but means something.* 

Herein we find the fatal lack of much contemporary photo- 
raphy, its shallowness and topical quality. We are stopped short 
by the simple objective fact of the picture, by its mere “is-ness”. 
Beyond this, we can find no meaning. The “is” quality of the 
picture may he, and often is, immediately startling, like a skyrocket, 
but it commands no respect and no second glance. An accurate 
photographic tally of the bristles on a pig’s snout or a literal repre¬ 
sentation of how a nude woman looks when she is folded into a 
washtub may gratify curiosity, scientific or otherwise; but then one 
turns the page and says “So what?” Such pictures mean nothing, 
they express nothing. 

*There are, of course, other expressive elements in a picture—colour, notan, tone relation, light¬ 
ing, composition, etc.—but for the purposes of this book we limit ourselves solely to the expressive 
qualities of the model. 


171 



The Emotional Fallacy. 

“Expression” rather than “emotion” is the key to the model’s 
function. There is a tendency to over-emphasize the importance of 
emotion in art. We are even told categorically that “all art is 
emotion”. Emotion is a very misleading criterion. It implies that 
the more emotion there is, the more art. By this standard, a pulp 
magazine is finer art than the Iliad, and a notification that you have 
won the Irish Sweepstakes is an absolute masterpiece of literature. 
For sheer emotional power, art cannot compete with reality and 
every-day life. As Leo Stein pointed out, a bloody traffic accident 
in the street in front of an art museum will instantly empty the 
building of all those who have been supposedly “wrapped up” in 
art. But—and here is the significant point—when they have counted 
the casualties, and stared at the ambulances, they will all return to 
the building and to the permanent interest that art affords them. 
The street accident simply is for the moment: it is gripping, charged 
with emotion—and altogether transitory. But in art there is mean¬ 
ing behind the surface fact, meaning that is there today, tomorrow, 
and all the days after tomorrow. 

The effort to reduce art to an emotional basis quickly comes to 
grief over the fact that emotion is often very vague, and even 
altogether lacking, in many great works of art. He would be bold 
indeed who tried to define the specific emotional quality of, say the 
Mona Lisa, the Venus of Melos, or the Taj Mahal. Some works of 
art, like the Egyptian sculptures of the Old Kingdom, owe their 
huge strength to their complete purgation from all such transitory 
human trivialities as emotion. 

To be sure, emotion is frequently the thing that is expressed in 
a picture—and this fact is, no doubt, the cause of the tendency to 
over-emphasize the importance of emotion as a pictorial element. 
Emotion may be expressed, or the utter lack of it may be expressed; 
but the only important fact is that of expression. 

The model, then, as an expressive element, is not important for 
what he or she is, but for what he or she says through the medium 


172 


of the picture. And the artist’s problem is to clarify meanings by 
means of physical adjustments. 

The Method of Expression. 

A picture is not made for the benefit of the photographer or of 
the model, but for the benefit of the ultimate consumer—the man 
who some time later looks at it. For the sake of the ultimate con¬ 
sumer, the model’s method of expression must be a comprehensible 
language. The photographer may know what is meant, the model 
may know what is meant; but unless the man who looks at the 
picture can, by the mere act of looking, know what is meant—the 
picture has failed of its mission. 

Thoughts and emotions cannot be photographed, despite the 
protestations of some mystically minded portraitists. What can be 
photographed are the physical manifestations of thoughts and emo¬ 
tions. Physical fact is ultimately the sole pictorial material. But 
expression is not achieved by the unselective recording of the 
physical fact. For, unfortunately, these physical manifestations of 
thoughts and emotions are not actually clearly marked or differen¬ 
tiated. Pictorially, a man laboring under a crushing sorrow might 
appear to be merely peevish. The camera would probably detect 
little difference in facial expression between a man who is plotting 
a murder and one who is figuring out another way he might have 
played last night’s bridge hand. And it is regrettably difficult for the 
candid camera to distinguish impulses emanating from the spirit 
from those proceeding from the viscera. 

The physical fact must be translated into the pictorial language 
before it becomes intelligible. The pictorial language of expression 
takes the form of pantomimic symbols. I call it pantomimic because 
of its relation to the ancient universal art of pantomime which 
translated thought into physical movement and attitude by means 
of standardized and stylized gesture. I call it symbolic because it 
deals, not with the thought or emotion itself, but with a sort of 
counter or chip that conveniently, concisely and unmistakably rep¬ 
resents the thing it stands for. The pantomimic symbols of pictorial 


173 


Figure 182 


Figure 183 


art are adapted to the peculiar limitations of the medium. 

Let it be clearly understood: by “pantomimic symbols” I do not 
mean banal gestures. The very banality of these gestures is due to 
the fact that they try to compromise with the realism of physical 
fact and are empty of expressive quality. 

The part played by the model as an expressive element is per¬ 
haps more clearly indicated by the three illustrations in Figures 
182, 183, and 184. In Figure 182 is shown a length of chain, inert, 
shapeless, and without significance. In Figures 183 and 184 the 
chain, by the physical manipulations of the “artist”, is moulded into 
two shapes of diverse meaning. The shapes are expressive because 
they are symbols: they are not “love” and “hate”, but they mean 
“love” and “hate”. 

We are now in a position to deal with the frequently asked ques¬ 
tion of whether the model should feel the emotion that he or she is 
expressing. This question is analogous to the ancient stage con¬ 
troversy whether an actor need “feel” the part he plays. Represent¬ 
ing one side of the controversy was Macready, who so depended on 
the impulse given him by a personal emotion that he was prone to 
excite himself before going on to play an emotional scene, by vio¬ 
lently shaking a ladder that stood in the wings. The other side is 


174 


Figure 184 



represented by the French tragedian Talma who would one moment 
be jesting with friends in the wings and a moment later in the 
midst of a scene of lofty passion. The latter was able to play the 
scene by the sheer physical resources of his technique, the former 
was compelled to call in the adventitious assistance of his own emo¬ 
tion. Obviously Talma was the greater actor. 

Some photographers are prone, when working with a model, to 
waste a great deal of time and energy in getting the model “worked 
up” to the emotion they have to represent. The time is wasted 
because the model's carefully cultivated emotion is a literal fact and 
not a pantomimic symbol . The literal facts of the physical manifes¬ 
tations of actual emotion are, as I have pointed out, without pictorial 
value or meaning, and are subject to the wildest misinterpretation. 
In synthesizing an actual emotion, the photographer and the model 
may have an interesting or harrowing experience, but to the ultimate 
consumer—the man who looks at the picture—the model’s emotion 
seems nothing but physical discomfort which is betrayed by an un¬ 
pleasant grimace. Pictorially, the model’s personal emotion counts 
for nothing; what the ultimate consumer sees in the picture counts 
for everything. 

I have never secured anything but empty gestures and foolish 
grimaces when I have encouraged the model to actually feel the 


175 


emotion of the scene. On the other hand, I have obtained an impres¬ 
sion of lofty tragedy when the model’s only emotion was annoyance 
at being kept past his lunch time. Much less than on the stage is 
there any justification for emotion on the part of the model: the 
picture is static, and there is no question of creating a continuity or 
sustaining a mood. At the very most, it may be permissible, early in 
the sitting, to allow the model one brief experimental flash of real 
emotion. Sometimes one is able to derive a suggestion from such a 
Hash, pictorially useless in itself but capable of being moulded into a 
gesture or attitude which has expressive quality as pantomime. 

The Limits of Expression. 

Realism thus sets a limit to expression by the model. The panto¬ 
mimic symbol is shattered by the intrusion of the real and the literal 
into the representation. 

This fact is especially apparent in the handling of dramatic pic¬ 
torial subjects. Drama may appear in a picture in either of two ways, 
explicitly or implicitly. When the drama is explicit, we have a more 
or less literal representation of a scene , a pictorial anecdote or 
“story-telling picture”. Outstanding examples of this type are fur¬ 
nished by Hogarth in his “Rake’s Progress” and “Marriage a la 
Mode”. Instances of the successful use of this sort of drama in pic¬ 
torial photography are exceedingly rare, though unsuccessful 
attempts crowd every amateur competition with reckless gestures 
and meaningless grimaces. These unsuccessful attempts are, in a 
word, pictures of drama, not dramatic pictures. 

Drama of the second type, the implied, deals not with overt 
actions and confrontation of opponents, but with suggestions, masked 
emotions, power held in restraint, moments heavy with potentiality 
and reminders of storms just past. Thus there is definite drama in 
character portrayal; for character is the cumulative result of accom¬ 
plished struggles. It is this dramatic perspective that distinguishes 
great portraits, such as da Vinci’s drawing of himself as an old man 
or Titian’s portrait of Sixtus X, from such brilliant but superficial 
likenesses as those of Sargent. 


176 


Obviously the second type of drama is better fitted to pictorial 
presentation, as there is less likelihood of the pantomimic symbol 
being damaged by the intrusion of literal emotion and action. 

In addition to emotion, drama frequently involves action. The 
use to which action may be put in a dramatic picture must be limited 
by the quality of the pantomimic symbol. Action must be suggested 
only, not literally shown. The literal depiction of action belongs to 
the field of the candid-cameramen and the sports photographers who 
so skillfully show us the runner suspended half-way over his hurdle, 
the sprinter breaking the tape, and the political speaker with his 
mouth open and a word half-uttered. The action shown in dramatic 
pictures of the explicit type is generally of this sort. We frequently 
see it in “stills” outside motion picture theatres. 

A further problem is involved when effort is made to show 
literal action in a dramatic picture. A dramatic moment, if more 
than one character is involved, consists not only of action but of 
reaction. To present action alone gives a sense of incompleteness, 
like a snapshot of a person walking, with one foot eternally suspended 
in mid-air. To simultaneously present action and reaction in the 
same picture (as is often done in movie “stills”) produces a sense 
of incongruity (because reaction follows action) and results often in 
a division of interest. As seen on the screen there would be no 
incongruity or division of interest in the motion picture from which 
the above-mentioned stills were taken; for the time element would 
there be made evident, with reaction following action. This con¬ 
fusing and incongruous simultanous presentation of action and 
reaction in the same picture is a frequent fault of pictorial represen¬ 
tations of explicit drama. 

Action in a dramatic picture, then, is generally best presented in 
terms of symbol and suggestion. A phase of any given action may be 
found which will give the full sense of the action with the smallest 
amount of literal representation. Much power may be found in the 
suggestion that there is momentary cessation of action, that action is 
just about to begin, or has just been completed. In this manner a 


177 



Figure ll>5 
“The Spanish Main” 


picture outwardly passive and restrained may be intensely dramatic 
through the implication of the possibilities of action. 

Compare in this respect, The Spanish Main (Figure 185) with 
Hypatia (Figure 186). 

The Spanish Main is a thorough-going example of the picture of 
explicit drama. It is just the sort of moment and just the sort of 
interpretation that one sees in movie stills. It is, to repeat the 
distinction made above, a picture of drama rather than a dramatic 
picture. The emotion is violent and thoroughly literal in its repre¬ 
sentation. There is little or no hint of any pantomimic quality. 
The violent contortions of the models stir in the beholder only a 
mild and condescending sort of interest. The action is of the frozen 
type that the candid camera secures. There is division of interest 
because action and reaction are presented simultaneously. 


178 




“Death of Hypatia” 


Figure 186 


William Mortensen 


179 



It is interesting to note that, in making this picture, the models 
were encouraged to feel the utmost of genuine personal emotion. 
So they worked themselves up into a perfect lather of maniacal 
blood-lust and frenzied terror respectively, with the present 
obviously feeble result. 

In Hypatia , involving likewise the composition of two figures, 
there is the slightest of literal manifestation of either emotion or 
action. Yet the moment is felt to he heavy with the direst of 
possibilities. In making this picture, needless to say, there was no 
effort at stirring up the models to emotional manifestations: all effort 
was bent to arranging the plastic and pantomimic elements. 

Representation of Movement. 

Literal representation of action should be avoided, as we have 
seen, and should be suggested as just beginning or just completed. 
A somewhat different problem is involved in the representation of 
movement. Some kinds of movement may be legitimately suggested 
in a picture. These are the types of movement that characteristically 
pertain to the person or thing represented. Thus, it is characteristic 
of marching soldiers that they march , of a dancer that she dances , 
and of the ocean, that its waves continue to beat upon the shore. 
Such movement is generally rhythmic and cyclic, repeating the same 
pattern with little variation. In pictorial representation of move¬ 
ment of this kind, the problem is to find the particular moment in 
the cycle that will best give the sense of the movement and its 
continued flow. This moment is generally found at the culminating 
point of the cycle; the climactic point at which there is a hint of 
momentary cessation of movement. Thus a wave is best represented 
when it hangs with over-curved crest just an instant before it dis¬ 
solves in foam and confusion. Marching soldiers are best repre¬ 
sented with the feet at the top of their swing, and the best sense of 
the dancer’s movement is given by the height of her gesture. 

Expressive Qualities of Male and Female Bodies. 

The expressive quality of the male body differs greatly from that 


180 


of the female body. Incongruity, especially in the case of nudes, 
results from the artist’s failure to take this difference into account. 
Without intending such an effect, he may find that his male figures 
are epicene, or his female figures masculine in suggestion. 

The basic expressive quality of the female figure is that of being 
admired. It is definitely passive in its suggestion. Violent activity 
in a nude female figure is therefore usually felt as incongruous. 
Unless there is logical basis for the absence of clothes—as in 
Gerome’s Pliryne —drama or powerful emotion should not be com¬ 
bined with the representation of the female nude. This unhappy 
combination is one of the things that is wrong with pictures of a 
certain well-known type—nude female figures being represented in 
the throes of violent and false emotion, hearing such titles as 
“Remorse”, “Exaltation”, etc. 

The male figure, on the other hand, connotes and expresses 
activity. The best expositions of the masculine nude have been 
those that have shown it in fight and combat, as in the metopes of 
the Parthenon, the Laocoon group, etc. Even such an outwardly 
passive figure as Rodin’s Thinker expresses a terrific inward struggle 
that is so primitive that it actually rises to the muscular level. Such 
thinking as Professor Einstein’s cerebration of the General Theory 
of Relativity could not, however, be expressed in plastic terms. 

Expressive Use of “Errors”. 

In Chapter Six in Part One I mentioned that there were circum¬ 
stances under which certain of the plastic errors of posing might 
be intentionally introduced into a picture. The sole justification for 
their introduction is greater expressiveness. The “errors” are so 
called because, by their inclusion in a pose, they give a false or per¬ 
verted impression of the structure of the human body. Generally 
speaking, the human structure should be accepted as one of the 
premises of pictorial expression. Occasionally, however, one has to 
deal with an idea that is best expressed by breaking rather than 
preserving this structure. 


181 


‘Steel Stocks Advance 


Figure 187 


William Mortensen 


For example, in Steel Stocks Advance (Figure 187) the idea is 
one that passes beyond conventional plastic expression. The “broken 
wrist” was deliberately and intentionally introduced because it 
seemed to express most clearly and concisely the pathos of the 
broken body and the rigidity of death. 

In Girl of the Highlands (Figure 188) the right angled elbow 
was permitted to remain because, by its masculine connotation, it 
gave an additional emphasis to the model’s expression of strength 
and independence. 

The foreshortened torse in The Priestess (Figure 189) has ex¬ 
pressive value. The fact that the body leans away from the observer 
carries out the impression of remoteness and inaccessible majesty. 




“Girl of the Highlands” Williarn Mortensen 

Figure 188 


183 







Had the body been erect or inclined toward the observer, the priest¬ 
ess would have seemed to condescend and to listen graciously. 

Here are a few other possible expressive uses of errors. Old age 
and extreme decrepitude naturally call for the use of a slumped 
scapula and of a collapsed abdomen. A flat foot in profile might be 
an appropriate part of a pose of a peasant type, expressing stability 
and close contact with the soil. The ugly and angular posture of 
the hand above the ilium may be useful in indicating vulgar 
belligerency. 

Before proceeding to the rather bold step of including errors for 
their expressive value, the photographer should ask himself two 
questions: 

1. Is the plastic or the expressive purpose the primary one 
in this subject? 

2. Is the introduction of the error the best possible method 
of expression? 

With plastic subjects, such as nudes, the expressive elements 
must be of the greatest delicacy. In such subjects the discordant 
emphasis of errors would be utterly incongruous—like a Stravinsky 
dissonance in the middle of a Hayden minuet. 

Often the idea that one seeks may be expressed just as well by 
keeping within the limits of bodily structure. In such a case, it is 
best to keep within these limits instead of proceeding to the extremity 
of deliberately introducing errors. 

This section provides no alibi for the careless and needless inclu¬ 
sion of errors. Errors must be included only with careful intent and 
realization of their significance. There is never any excuse for intro¬ 
ducing several errors at once. The very expressive value of an error 
depends upon its isolation. 

Relation of Figure and Background. 

A special problem of the expressive qualities of the model is 
involved in the use of figures in landscape. 

Landscape and the human figure are two diverse and different 


J 81 



“The Priestess*' 


Figure 189 


William Mortensen 


185 





elements. Landscape is largely a matter of mood , and in the creation 
of this mood lighting effects are all-important. The human figure, on 
the other hand, carries formal and personal implications. In the 
representation of the figure, lighting is secondary and generally exists 
merely for the sake of visibility.* 

Because of their diverse nature, figure and landscape cannot 
function equally in the same picture. One or the other must domi¬ 
nate. And, in any given picture, the artist must be very clear in his 
own mind, and must make it very clear to the observer, which of the 
two elements is intended to play the principal role. 

Thus there are two different and distinct uses of figures in land¬ 
scapes, and two different ways of combining figures and backgrounds. 
These are: 

1. Figure dominant, landscape incidental. 

2. Landscape dominant, figure incidental. 

The first type of combination is well represented in the work of 
Alexander Keighley. In his pictures the landscape is simply a gorgeous 
but subordinate “back drop” in front of which is played the drama 
of his figures. 

Leonard Misonne’s pictures represent, as a rule, the second type 
of combination. He uses his subordinate human figures merely as 
fingers, as it were, that point the way into the picture. And, having 
thus coaxed the attention into the picture, these figures gracefully 
yield it up to the dominant landscape interest. 

Any picture in which there is anything like equal interest in 
figure and landscape is, inevitably, a had picture. One element or the 
other must unmistakably dominate. 

There are numerous pictorial methods by which the artist may 
emphasize or subordinate, if he chooses, the figures in a landscape. 
Here are some of the more important methods: 

1. Lighting. Strong light on figure emphasizes it. Figure in 
shadow is subordinate. 

2. Position. Figure near center of picture is more emphatic 
than near edge. 

*For discussion of the pictorial function of light see Pictorial Lighting, Chapter Two. 


186 




3. Size. Large figure dominates, small figure is subordinate. 

4. Tone. A costume of tone contrary to the background 
stresses the figure, a costume of similar tone subordinates 
it. Thus a dark costume is emphatic against a light back¬ 
ground, and subordinate against a dark one. 

5. Contrast. If figure contains in itself an extreme range of 
contrast, it is emphatic. If contrast is slight, figure is 
subordinated. 

6. Detail. Inclusion of detail in figure emphasizes it. Lack 
of detail subordinates it. 

7. Face. Figure facing observer is emphatic. Figure turned 
away is subordinate. 


187 




8. Direction of movement. Movement toward observer em¬ 
phasizes figure. Movement away from the observer (into 
the picture) subordinates it. (Note that in Misonne’s 
pictures the figures that travel his rutted roads are usually 
moving away from you.) 

9. Gesture. A gesture by the figure commands attention. 
A quiescent figure is subordinate. 

Figure 190 and Figure 191 show the two methods of combining 
figure and background. In Figure 190 the figure is subordinated by 
being kept in the shadow , by its inferior position , by its relatively 
small size , by the dark tone of its costume, by its lack of contrast , 


188 




by the complete lack of detail, and by the fact that it faces away 
from the observer. At the same time, the architectural background 
is emphasized by the lighting, large size , greater contrast , and more 
detail . 

In Figure 191 the figure is dominant. It is emphasized by receiv¬ 
ing the principal illumination, by its conspicuous position, by its 
relatively large size, by its large range of contrast, by the detail which 
it includes, and by the .fact that the face is shown. The background 
is, on the other hand, subordinated by being kept in the shadow, 
which in turn reduces the contrast and the amount of detail . 


189 


PART THREE 


Problems of Direction 


CHAPTER ONE 


The General Aims of Direction 


The two preceding sections of this book have dealt with the two 
phases—physical and expressive—of the model’s contribution to the 
picture. We now come more specifically to the artist’s part in the 
project. The model may have the requisite physical characteristics 
and ample expressive ability, but, unless the artist is able to make 
use of these things by securing the desired response from the model, 
all the model’s qualifications and abilities count for nothing. 

Direction is the method by which the artist secures such response 
from the model as will lead to the production of a picture. 

Part of direction is concerned with the practical problems of 
securing the proper physical basis and the expressive qualities that 
we discussed in the two preceding sections. But there is also the 
equally important personal problem of the relationship between 
artist and model. The practical problems cannot be properly dealt 
with until the personal one is understood. This matter of personal 
relationship is so important because it determines the model’s 


190 


mental attitude toward the sitting and the projected picture. A 
hostile, apprehensive or indifferent model is scarcely better than no 
model at all. Unless there is this proper mental attitude on the part 
of the model, the most workmanlike arranging of the latter’s limbs, 
the most skillful evoking of his or her emotions, will avail little 
towards securing a picture. Thus all personal relationship of artist 
and model may become concerned in direction. 

There are, therefore, three principal aims in the direction of a 
model: 

1. To secure proper mental attitude. 

2. To secure proper physical response. 

3. To secure proper emotional expression. 

Three Bad Model Reactions. 

In securing a useful and cooperative attitude toward the business 
of making a picture there are three especially bad reactions of the 
model that must at all costs he avoided. They are all negative and 
destructive, and the presence of any one of them is sufficient to 
wreck the prospects of any sitting. These are the three: 

1. Resentment. 

2. Boredom. 

3. Distraction. 

These three reactions constitute an obstacle that the best of 
photographers with the best of pictorial material and all the time 
in the world cannot surmount. If the model is resentful, bored or 
inattentive, the unhappy fact always grins through in the finished 
picture. 

How shall these reactions be avoided? Possibly the best way to 
avoid arousing resentment in the model is to understand its causes. 

Causes of Resentment. 

As the first of these causes we may mention a faulty attitude on 
the part of the artist himself. This wrong attitude may take any one 
of four different forms, but it is due in all cases to a feeling of 
inferiority on the part of the artist. These four wrong attitudes, all 


191 


motivated by inferiority, are: 

1. Cheap flippancy. The artist tries to wisecrack his way out 
of his embarrassment. This results in reducing the picture to a 
secondary issue, with an inevitable indifferent and half-way sort of 
result. The model naturally resents this cheap approach. 

2. Timid vacillation. The artist is too scared to make any def¬ 
inite and coherent suggestion. The model either despises him for 
his timorousness or else thoroughly resents him because she suspects 
his timidity conceals an ulterior motive. 

3. Tyranny. The artist attempts to brazen out his insufficient 
knowledge and uncertainty by a hard-boiled belligerent attitude 
which implies that the model is a mere beast of burden. 

4. Egotism. Sometimes the inferiority complex asserts itself in 
the form of brassy self-assertion. The artist devotes the sitting to 
impressing the model and bragging about the salons he has crashed. 

A frequent cause of resentment is apparent lack of appreciation 
on the part of the artist. When the model is giving his or her best 
effort to the making of the picture and is getting hot, tired and 
uncomfortable, the artist, unless he is careful, is apt to get so 
absorbed in his own problem that he takes the model’s contribution 
for granted. A word of flattery goes a long way toward securing a 
good reaction from the model. As a matter of fact, the flattery may 
be laid on with quite a lavish hand. It is a curious psychological 
quirk that a model when posing will eagerly soak up fulsome praise 
that would be laughed off under any other circumstances as out¬ 
rageous flattery. 

Men are resentful of too much ceremony. They have come to have 
their picture taken or to be in a picture, and, while they are willing 
to work hard, they want to arrive at the main problem with as little 
fussing around as possible. 

With women, a particular cause of resentment is jealousy. If two 
or more women are included in a picture, or if one woman looks on 
while another models, the problem of jealously is apt to arise. Posing 
provides especially rich ground for feminine jealousy because rival 
exhibitionisms are brought into competition for favorable notice. 


192 



“The White Hibiscus’ 


William Mortensen 


193 




When several women appear in one picture, it is wise and diplomatic 
to avoid featuring one of them to the exclusion of the others. Make 
an appearance at least of featuring each of them in turn.* The other 
source of jealousy is dealt with by avoiding, so far as possible, the 
presence of female spectators while another woman is working as 
model.** In fact, it is wisest not to clutter up a sitting with any 
spectators of any sex. 

Resentment may easily develop, especially with a new or inex¬ 
perienced model, if the artist is obscure or vague in his instructions. 
The artist may be clear in his own mind as to what he wants, but he 
must, for the model’s benefit, take particular pains to put his ideas 
into clear, simple and consistent terms. Unless he is careful on this 
point, the model will speedily become annoyed at being unjustly 
placed in a stupid light. Some specific suggestions for clarifying 
directions and instructions to models will he given a little later in 
this chapter. 

A thoughtless artist may arouse resentment by imposing too much 
on a willing model. Most models are willing, but enough’s enough. 
A stage is reached when weariness is too great to be borne: a rest 
period should then be called, or the sitting terminated. No matter 
how good a sport the model may be, the artist should know when to 
draw the line in asking the performance of an act that is definitely 
dangerous, unpleasant or painful. The artist should never demand 
anything of a model that he is not willing to do himself.*** 

Summing up, the general cause of resentment may be described 
as lack of tact and consideration. This formula is broad enough to 
include the specific causes we have described and any others that 
may arise. To realize the best possible results from models, the artist 
must be a subtle diplomat as well as a person of human sympathy, and 
be capable of simple kindness as well as Machiavellian stratagems. 

*This problem is further discussed in connection with the use of groups in pictures, Chapter 
Three, Part Three. 


**The presence of a maid, of different race and social status, is quite permissible. There is not, 
under these circumstances, any element of competition involved. 


***It is sometimes best in such questionable cases for the artist to take over the model’s task. 
The author played the uncomfortable leading role in The Vampire. (Monsters & Madonnas, 1936.) 


194 





To Avoid Boredom. 

Resentment has at least the advantage of being an active and 
wide-awake reaction, no matter how unfortunate and destructive it 
may be otherwise. Boredom, on the other hand, is simply slow death. 
The model’s original interest in the project will, if it finds nothing to 
sustain itself, wither and fade away. The artist must learn to plan 
and conduct the sitting in such a manner as to keep the model 9 s 
interest not only alive but growing. 

Realization of this general fact is the best preventive of boredom; 
but a few more specific suggestions may be made. 

In the first place, the artist should know, and should show that he 
knows, what he is doing. Or, if he is uncertain, he should never let 
the model suspect the fact. At the first sign of uncertainty, vagueness 
or fumbling, the model loses interest. One of the advantages of such 
preliminary preparations as plans and sketches is that they enable 
the artist to swing immediately into a definite problem. Avoid in any 
case too much deliberation and obvious experimentation at the be¬ 
ginning of the sitting. Give the model’s interest something concrete 
to cope with at the outset: later, when his or her interest is estab¬ 
lished , the model will gladly follow you into all sorts of experimen¬ 
tation. 

A necessary factor in arousing and maintaining the model’s 
interest is, of course, a corresponding interest on the part of the artist. 
If the artist appears to be uninterested and blase about the sitting, 
it is not to be expected that the model will arise to the occasion. The 
artist need not bubble or gush, but he should show interest in what he 
is doing. If he is not capable of genuine enthusiasm about the pic¬ 
torial project, there is no excuse for his undertaking it, and he is 
merely wasting the model’s time and his own. 

It is to the advantage of both the artist and the model to conduct 
the sitting at a quite rapid tempo. A rapid tempo makes the artist 
give his attention to the picture that he is making and to the model 
that is before him, and prevents him from becoming involved in 
the mechanical complications of his camera. The same rapid tempo 


195 


for a pose that is held too long becomes wooden and tense, despite 
keeps the model on the alert, and assures him that something is 
going on. To keep up the impression of speed, the artist should 
take—or pretend to take—numerous shots of all stages of the 
sitting. Film is the cheapest ingredient that goes into a sitting, and 
it is poor economy to be sparing of exposures. If a pose is quite 
hopeless and film is running low, maintain the impression of speed 
by going through all the motions of taking numerous exposures— 
with the black slide left in place. A bit of elementary sleight-of- 
hand will convey the impression that several pictures have been 
taken—and thus save the model’s feelings. Never let the model 
down. 

A natural obstacle to the model’s continued interest lies in the 
inherently static quality of the act of posing. It is difficult for a 
model to maintain the impression that something is happening when 
he has not moved for five minutes himself, when his neck is getting 
stiff, and his nose itches, and his foot is asleep. To keep up the feel¬ 
ing of action and “something doing” the artist should direct the 
model to break the pose occasionally and to resume it after a few 
second’s rest. This practice reacts to the advantage of the pose also, 
the best effort of model and artist. When the pose is broken and 
picked up again, it will be found to have all the good plastic qualities 
that it formerly had, plus a new vitality and spontaneity. 

A well-directed sitting will have something of the quality of a 
good plan—a constant building and development of tension and 
excitement. The interest of model and artist both should be carried 
along on this current of common enthusiasm. To make the sitting 
move in this way, the artist must work , must give of himself. An 
artist who finishes a sitting with his respiration, pulse and the part 
of his hair unaltered, has probably obtained very poor results. 

Too great intimacy and familiarity between model and artist may 
prove a source of boredom. Because of too frequent repetition, the 
sitting becomes for both a matter of uneventful routine. Routine 
sittings rarely produce anything but routine results. There should 
be a definite psychological barrier separating the functions of artist 


196 


and model, the artist controlling and the model subservient. It is 
to the advantage of both to preserve the sense of this barrier. So 
when matters reach a stage when the model is able to foresee re¬ 
signedly every suggestion of the artist, and when the artist finds 
himself more interested in the model than in the picture—it is time 
to call quits for awhile. Possibly the stimulus of a new and exciting 
pictorial subject may serve to arouse a fresh and impersonal interest 
in both. If not, artist and model should suspend operations for a 
month or so. At the end of this mutual vacation, they will be able 
to return to work with renewed interest and their proper relation¬ 
ship re-established. 

The psychological harrier between model and artist is a very 
important one and quite necessary to their proper functioning in 
making a picture. Model and artist both should strive to maintain 
this harrier and be on their guard to prevent the destructive element 
of intimacy from creeping into their relationship. 

One other kind of boredom should be mentioned —constitutional 
boredom. Once in awhile one meets a model that is bored before the 
sitting, is gently bored throughout the sitting, and is bored at the end 
of the sitting—in fact, one can only surmise that she was born bored. 
Neither direction nor dynamite can prevail against this mild and 
bovine ennui. A model of this sort is very limited in her usefulness. 
Only by happy and improbable accident can she be of value in 
dramatic subjects. If her figure is good enough to compensate for 
the trouble, she may prove of use in plastic compositions of a 
completely inert and placid type. 

Sources of Distraction. 

The third type of bad reaction that prevents the model from 
attaining a proper mental altitude toward the sitting and its problems 
is distraction. Many things may serve to distract a model and pre¬ 
vent him or her from concentrating on the issue at hand, but the 
principal sources of distraction may he summed up under four 
headings: 

In the first place, the distraction or interruption may arise from 


197 


within the model herself. (It is generally female models that offend 
in this manner.) Certain models, sometimes because of nervousness, 
sometimes from sheer nitwittedness, are inclined to make a joke of 
the whole matter, and to punctuate the sitting with giggles, titters 
and gales of laughter. Such a model must be dealt with sternly. If 
she does not prove amenable to discipline, she should be forthwith 
dropped from future consideration as a model. Such a person may 
be the life of the party—when she is at a party; but in a studio she is 
a demoralizing and disruptive influence. 

Another possible source of distraction is an artist with an 
untimely sense of humor. A gift for repartee is a valuable posses¬ 
sion, but the artist who parades it at unsuitable moments is defeat¬ 
ing his own end. The success of certain sorts of pictorial material 
depends upon creating and sustaining, even during the sitting, a 
definite mood and illusion. This is particularly true of costume 
pictures with a suggestion of “period”. This illusion is a very 
delicate structure into which a modern wisecrack crashes, like a 
baseball into a piece of Venetian glass. The artist gets his response: 
the model laughs—dutifully, hysterically, or resentfully, as the case 
may be; but the mood is irretrievably shattered. 

A third source of distraction arises from extraneous personali¬ 
ties at the sitting. A mob of chattering friends and relatives should 
of course never be tolerated. The picture is primarily the problem 
of the artist and the model. The presence of other persons, even 
though silent and well-behaved, may prove a distracting influence. 
Models vary in their reaction to spectators. Some are not bothered, 
a few are actually stimulated by the presence of a “gallery”. Still 
others, however, are rendered extremely uncomfortable and self- 
conscious by the intrusion of extraneous personalities. The chatter¬ 
ing relatives should be eliminated with as little delay and ceremony 
as possible. The best practice is to allow no spectators at a sitting 
unless it is absolutely certain that they will not prove a source of 
distraction. 

Finally, there is distraction which arises from mechanical com¬ 
plications. Various manifestations of the Machine and its brood of 


198 



small monsters are always conspiring to interrupt the sitting. Films 
must be changed, cameras focused, diaphragm settings adjusted, 
lights juggled and exposures made. The inexperienced photog¬ 
rapher, if he allows himself to become involved in these things, will 
work himself into a perspiring frenzy over them, and his model 
into a state of nervous apprehension. Instead, the photographer 
should always strive to reduce these operations to a mere ritual 
which involves the fingers but not the mind, and which is carried 
off with a Murad-inspired nonchalance. Nothing should be allowed 
to interrupt the smooth flow of the sitting. 

The lighting units are mechanical elements that are particularly 
liable to worry a model. They dazzle one, stare one down, flood 
one’s deformities, physical and moral, with their harsh radiance— 
and never seem to be correctly adjusted. These characteristics of 
lighting units are especially apparent when the units are numerous, 


199 






huge, inordinately bright, and weirdly shaped. But even a single 
small unit may become very upsetting to the model if the artist 
juggles it about distractedly. Avoid shifting the units suddenly and 
abruptly. Instead, work by a series of small adjustments. There 
are actual dangers involved in the handling of lights: if a recklessly 
plunging photographer trips over a light cord, a nude model may 
receive serious and disfiguring burns from the overturned light 
unit.* Have consideration for your model’s eyes. Prolonged ex¬ 
posure of their eyes to strong light causes some people great distress. 
Permit your models to close their eyes, if they wish, between ex¬ 
posures and during changes in set-up. If it is necessary to bring a 
unit very close to the model’s face, the light should not be left 
burning continuously. 

Factors in Securing Proper Physical Response. 

I have suggested that there are three principal aims in the 
direction of a model: 

1. To secure proper mental attitude. 

2. To secure proper physical response. 

3. To secure proper emotional expression. 

We have considered the first aim in terms of obstacles that pre¬ 
vent its attainment. We come now to the consideration of factors 
that assist in attaining the second aim—proper physical response. 

The first factor, and a very important one, is clear direction. 
In other words, the model must be made to know what you are talk¬ 
ing about. Clear direction is not highfalutin language nor vague 
and misty appeals to the imagination, ending with a hopeful sugges¬ 
tion to the model that they do something along that line. On the 
contrary, good direction is definite, concrete, and concise. It says, 
in effect, “The idea of the picture is thus and so. You will wear 
this and make up thus. We will begin with you standing in this 
manner. Turn your head to the right. Raise your right shoulder. 
Depress your left elbow. . . .” And so on. 

♦This is one of the risks against which the photographer should protect himself by some form 
of liability insurance. (See Appendix B.) 


200 



An essential part of clear direction is a mutually accepted 
vocabulary of commands. To accomplish anything, even with the 
simplest sort of physical adjustments, model and artist must have a 
background of common experience and understanding. The vocabu¬ 
lary supplies the first step toward this common background. To 
avoid long hours of fruitless haggling, it is immediately necessary 
that artist and model establish between themselves a concise and 
convenient vocabulary of commands whereby the artist directs the 
model in arriving at a desired pose. This vocabulary should be brief 
and definite, and learning to work by it should be the first task of 
a new model. Only as a last resort, which concedes either the 
artist’s inarticulateness or the model’s stupidity, should it prove 
necessary for the artist to make a bodily adjustment by touching the 
model. Of course, the arranging of details of costume and the 
placing of locks of hair come under a different category: in these 
cases it is frequently desirable for the artist to make the adjustment 
himself. 

Every artist will find it best to create his own vocabulary of 
commands, but a few suggestions may be made. In regard to Right 
and Left, let the artist accept the convention of the stage director, 
and command “Right” or “Left” in terms of the model's right or left. 
Distinguish immediately between “tipping the head” and “turning 
the head”. (For example, the head in Figure 34 is tipped to her 
left, that in Figure 39 is turned to her right.) 

A small and obvious point of direction, yet one that is frequently 
forgotten, is the need of warning the model before each exposure 
with some such phrase as “Hold it!” or “Still!” Failure to do this 
will result in many losses through movement. Lack of warning is 
also liable to arouse resentment in a model. An inexperienced 
model will need to be cautioned also against moving between the 
initial and concluding clicks of a time exposure. 

A second factor in securing proper physical response is the train¬ 
ing of the model. A new model, no matter how willing, is more diffi¬ 
cult to secure accurate physical response from, owing to his or her 


201 


ignorance of the conventions and limitations of the act of posing. 

A well-trained model, for example, will move slowly in answer 
to a command. Too prompt or abrupt a response may shatter the 
whole pose. Rather than leaping instantly into the new position, 
the model should strive to move slowly towards it. The artist may 
then stop the movement when the desired degree of alteration is 
reached. 

In the later stages of refining a pose it is essential that the 
model acquire the trick of adjusting the position of one part of the 
body without changing the conformation of the rest. The model 
should be able, for example, to adjust the arrangement of a hand 
without moving the arm. Or to lean forward or back without 
changing the angle of head and shoulders. Or to move the head 
slowly and delicately without moving the shoulders. 

With experience, an intelligent model will come to appreciate 
the limitations of the camera, and will adjust his or her movements 
to conform to them. Such a model will instinctively come to plan 
poses in camera terms—that is, in terms of a plane at right angles 
to the axis of the lens, avoiding all gestures or actions extending 
toward or away from the camera. It is sometimes helpful to new 
models to suggest that they imagine themselves attached to a wall on 
which they form bas-relief patterns. 

Another factor in securing proper physical response from a 
model is the application of universal artistic practice to the photog¬ 
rapher’s procedure in building up a pose. An essential part of this 
practice is the principle of establishing large masses before bother¬ 
ing with details. Amateurs working with models for the first time 
are very apt to violate this principle. To start the sitting by fussing 
with the position of the hands, with the precise angle of the chin, or 
with a lesser detail of costume, can lead only to confusion. 

In building up the physical basis of a pose it is best to work 
along the following systematic lines: 

1. As a painter lays in the main masses of his picture with 
charcoal, rough in the main idea of your pose. This “main idea”' 
may consist of a pencil sketch, or of a hazily visualized mental 


202 


pattern, or of little more than an emotional reaction. But whatever 
it is, place the main masses of your model’s body to conform roughly 
to this idea. 

2. When the pose is roughed in, stand off and examine it imper¬ 
sonally. Numerous obvious and major errors will become apparent. 
Proceed then to eliminate the major errors. 

3. You have now the corrected general basis of the pose. Pro¬ 
ceed next to adjust details, working with progressively smaller items 
of pose, hair-dress and costume. 

4. Finally, examine the set-up once more. Wherever possible, 
eliminate the minor errors that become evident. It is necessary to 
proceed with caution in the elimination of minor errors, for one 
may find that he has also eliminated the spontaneity and vitality of 
the pose. It is also possible, as I pointed out in Part Two, that some 
of the effectiveness of the pose may be due to the expressive use of 
a plastic error. 

For the sake of maintaining the interest of the model, it will he 
necessary to begin shooting early in the procedure. Even though, 
to the artist’s eye, the pose is far from perfect, it should be recorded. 
The act of taking exposures builds up the impression of something 
doing, something accomplished, and stimulates the model to further 
effort. This practice is occasionally profitable in other ways also; 
for sometimes an unsuspected picture will reveal itself in a proof 
of an early crude stage of a pose. 

Factors in Securing Emotional Expression. 

The third aim of direction, as I have outlined at the beginning 
of this chapter, is the securing of proper emotional expression. 

In Part One we emphasized the necessity of a clearly established 
plastic basis for thought or emotion. As this physical basis is the 
sine qua non of any sort of pictorial representation, we have dealt 
with it first. 

In actual practice, the relating of thought and emotion to the 
plastic form is not so simple. Despite the primary importance of 
the plastic basis, emotion and thought are in no wise to be regarded 


203 


as mere veneers that are pasted on over the plastic foundation. 
From the artist’s point of view, thought and emotion frequently 
guide the whole process, setting the key for the pose, and providing 
an element of unification. But in dealing with the model the prob¬ 
lem is different. Too early introduction of emotional or expressive 
issues needlessly complicates things, and distracts one from the 
immediate physical problem of posing the body. Furthermore, there 
are certain expressive actions that cannot be adequately suggested 
by mere synthetic physical adjustments. 

There are two methods by which thought and action may be 
related to the plastic basis. The choice of method depends upon the 
type of pictorial material. 

1. For a passive, quiescent sort of composition such as Give Us 
This Day (Figure 192), the whole simple plastic basis may be built 
up without suggesting any emotion to the models. When the basis 
is well in hand, the emotion may then be suggested, completing and 
unifying the picture. 

2. In a picture involving an active, violent composition, the first 
method is not feasible. It is necessary in such a case to suggest the 
emotion or thought to the model at the outset. The model, if at all 
competent, can create from this suggestion the beginning of the 
plastic basis of the picture. It will probably be crude and faulty, 
but the artist will be able to correct and refine upon it along the 
lines of the procedure just discussed. During this period of correc¬ 
tion and refinement, the thought or emotion is forgotten, and the 
problem becomes again a purely plastic one. 


204 



“Give Us This Day” 


Figure 192 


William Mortensen 


205 




CHAPTER TWO 


The Three Types of Models 


Models (being but human) differ widely in personality, intel¬ 
ligence, sensitivity and initiative. The proper handling of each 
model to secure the fullest and most expressive results is, for the 
experienced artist, a new and individual problem. However, it is 
possible, without losing sight of the individual aspects of the prob¬ 
lem, to classify models in three general categories. By understand¬ 
ing and learning to recognize these categories and by the practice 
of “pigeon-holing” all models on this basis one may much simplify 
the multifarious problems of directions. 

These three classes of models represent (as I have outlined in 
the Introduction) three different conditions of working that may 
characterize the association of artist with model. To reiterate, these 
conditions are: 

1. The artist is dominant. 

2. The model is dominant. 

3. There is cooperation between the two. 

It is true that some accomplished models are able to adapt them¬ 
selves to any of these three conditions. Nevertheless, these condi¬ 
tions represent three different and distinct types of models, of 
widely different background and qualifications. It is essential that 
one learn to discriminate between these types, as each is adapted to 
a different sort of picture and requires different handling. These 


206 


three types we may for brevity’s sake designate as follows: 

1. The passive (or plastic) type. 

2. The personal type. 

3. The cooperative type. 

The condition of complete dominance of the artist over the 
model is appropriate to pictures in which the emphasis is on purely 
plastic elements. Neither personality nor drama enter into the pic¬ 
ture: the model is, in effect, passive clay which the potter-artist 
moulds to his will. Most nudes belong in this category. So also do 
many pictures in which large groups are used. Such pictures, par¬ 
ticularly if they are being evolved from a preconceived sketch, are 
concerned with large problems of composition rather than individual 
expressiveness. 

For the passive type the principal qualification is the physical 
one. If nudes are in view, of course the figure must be good and the 
carriage graceful. No great intelligence is demanded of this type nor 
any particular dramatic power, but the model must possess the 
ability to subordinate himself or herself to the artist’s direction. 
Excessive exuberance or flightiness is a definite handicap. If the 
model is intelligent and has dramatic ability, there is possibility that 
he or she may be developed up to the point of doing pictures of the 
cooperative type. Indeed, extensive work under the passive condi¬ 
tion is the best training and preparation for a model of the latter 
type. 

When the model is dominant, we have the working condition 
that results in vivid portraiture. The personality of the sitter shines 
forth, unadorned by any comment or obvious arrangement by the 
artist. The acceptance of this working condition assumes that the 
model possesses a photographically effective personality. This con¬ 
dition is, naturally, the appropriate one for photographing profes¬ 
sional actors. Ideally, it is appropriate for all portraiture; but, un¬ 
happily, not all who come to sit for pictures have personalities that 
are immediately effective in the photographic medium. In such 
cases the photographer is obliged to exert his directorial prerogative 
and endeavor to create a pseudo-personality that will be acceptable 


207 


to friends and relatives.* 

Models of the personal type are readily identified by their imme¬ 
diately arresting and vital quality. Portraiture of notables of stage 
and screen and public life deals, in effect, with models of this type. 
The persons themselves, what they are, how they express themselves, 
these matters are the central interest, not how the artist expresses 
himself through them. The artist’s task with such a model is pri¬ 
marily one of recording vivid and significant moments. He must 
practice severe self-abnegation, rigidly excluding his own person¬ 
ality from the problem. The model must feel no slightest sense of 
restraint, but must be encouraged to take the lead, to be himself 
utterly, to express himself fully. Meanwhile, the artist exercises, as 
unobtrusively as possible, some control in preventing unpleasant 
errors in arrangement. 

The condition of cooperation , the third possible relationship 
between artist and model, must exist for the production of pictures 
in which an idea is involved. When interpretation into pictorial 
terms of a dramatic theme or characterization is sought for, it may 
be obtained only by a sympathetic collaboration of artist and model. 
This collaboration need not be obvious or physical. There is no 
need for extensive and long-winded consultation. But sympathy 
there must be, a sense of rapport , and an identity of purpose. Such 
collaboration is from the very nature of things rare, but from it 
spring the finest accomplishments in pictorial art. 

Usually a model is not equipped to qualify for this condition of 
working until he or she has had considerable experience in working 
before the camera in problems of the passive type. Under these cir¬ 
cumstances an occasional model will reveal, by ready intelligence and 
an aptitude for dramatic expression, a fitness for coping with more 
significant pictorial problems. Such a one, by training, may evolve 
into what is the highest type of model, one that is capable of genu¬ 
inely collaborating with the artist. Only by the use of a model of this 

♦The uses of the personal type is considered in these pages only in relation to the “pictorial 
portrait.” The problems of commercial portraiture, which are of course embraced under this condi¬ 
tion of working, would load us too far afield. These problems—and they are many—must await later 
treatment. 


208 



“Myrdith 

William Mortensen 



sort is it possible to escape from the shortcomings of the other two 
types—the emotional lack of the first and the topical character of the 
second—and to achieve pictorial work that is solid in substance and 
authentic in emotion, with perfect balance between control and 
expression. The combination of apparent spontaneity with fine com¬ 
position is the rarest of pictorial qualities, and may be attained only 
by patient cooperative effort of model and artist. Photography is 
probably the only medium that permits of such complete cooperation. 

For a model of this type a native dramatic ability is generally 
more useful than a background of professional or stage experience. 
There is apt to be a certain over-facility and smugness about the 
work of professionals. They are inclined to utilize stock effects from 


209 







their repertory instead of the sincerely felt emotions that the un¬ 
trained actor strives for. The eye may be impressed by the slickness 
of the professional’s work, but the less impressionable camera detects 
and reveals any note of insincerity. 

The next three chapters will be concerned with the various special 
problems involved in directing these three types of models. 


210 


CHAPTER THREE 


The Plastic Model . 


The condition of working in which the artist is dominant in all 
stages of the sitting finds its realization in the plastic model. The 
term “plastic” not only expresses the physical function of this sort of 
model—the malleable material which the artist shapes as he wishes 
—but also well describes the characteristic mentality of this type. A 
self-assertive nature and an active brain are definitely antipathetic to 
the best work of the plastic category. Rather, a gentle and amenable 
disposition should be sought. Ideally, a mind that is a tabula rasa, 
open to all impressions and free from all predispositions, is the 
proper mentality for a model of the plastic type. 

The nude and the group picture are the two most important and 
characteristic uses of the purely plastic model. In a model that is to 
he used in a nude picture the only significant qualifications are 
physical ones. Both the self-assertion of the personality model and 
the dramatic expression of the cooperative model are out of place in 
a nude. It is perhaps regrettable, but neither intelligence nor virtue 
seems to be very effective pictorially. The Dumb Doras are frequently 
useful in pictures of the plastic type, while the knock-kneed Hypatias 
fail miserably. And a street walker may reveal (pictorially) greater 
spirituality than the president of the W. C. T. U. 


211 


Photographers sometimes sneer at the Dumb Dora type of model. 
“Tillie is absolutely hopeless”, they will assert. “She is completely 
dead pan. I can get no expression out of her at all.” This assertion 
shows too much readiness to pass on the blame. It may be freely 
granted that Tillie is a mental light weight. The trouble, however, 
lies not in her “dead pan”, but in the dead brain of the photographer. 
No model is too dumb, but some artists are too stupid to realize the 
possibilities of what is given them. A resourceful artist could find 
effective material among the residents of a Home for Half-Wits. 

Previous experience is of secondary importance with a plastic 
model—provided she has the physical qualifications. Indeed, experi¬ 
ence may even prove disadvantageous if it upsets the model’s com¬ 
plaisant simplicity of mind and gives her notions and prepossessions 
about how things should be done. Dumb and amenable is much more 
useful than experienced and willful. For this reason, there is little 
if any advantage in employing professional models. The model for 
a nude picture need possess only one thing—the physical qualifica¬ 
tions. 

However , these qualifications must be of the very highest. Only 
the finest of figures may qualify for use in nudes. Nudes are not made 
by merely removing the clothes from models. Nudes are, without 
doubt, the most difficult to do of all pictures. A photographer who 
attempts to follow this difficult line of work with a model that is 
physically inferior has hopelessly handicapped himself at the start. 

Personal Relationships. 

Obviously, the relationship of photographer and nude model 
involves delicate problems of tact and taste. 

The most important general principle that governs this relation¬ 
ship is this: The removal of clothes removes no harriers. The cus¬ 
tomary relationship of artist and model is in no wise altered by the 
accident of nudity. The attitude of the artist toward the model should 
be, as always, kindly and respectful, never degrading into banal 
familiarity. On the other hand, all false prudery and lack of frank¬ 
ness should be avoided. Nor should the artist fail to pay the model 


212 


“Study” 


William Mortensen 


213 
























the tribute of admiration.* 

The first time a model poses in the nude for a photographer is 
always a touchy proceeding. It calls for the utmost tact on the 
part of the photographer. He must realize the model’s probable 
embarrassment and act accordingly. He should avoid any prolonged 
or obvious scrutiny. His manner should be matter-of-fact, imper¬ 
sonal and serious, but should never suggest brusqueness. By working 
swiftly and plunging immediately into the problem at hand the 
model’s mind may be distracted from the strangeness of the situation. 
The model should be made to feel that both she and the artist are 
secondary to the picture . If photographers would exercise more care, 
consideration and tact, it would happen less often that a model’s first 
session of posing in the nude is also her last. 

How shall an inexperienced model be introduced to the question 
of posing in the nude? Probably the worst of all ways of accomplish¬ 
ing this is the slow disrobing method practiced by some photog¬ 
raphers—a gradual insinuating away of the model’s clothes. This 
“strip tease” method is open to numerous objections. In the first 
place, it is definitely erotic in its implications. Furthermore, it has a 
most unfortunate effect on the model. The gradual removal of her 
clothes makes her all the more keenly aware of them and her need 
of them. When the ultimate garment is removed, she is so thoroughly 
embarrassed that there is little hope of securing good pictures. 

A preferable method is to remove no clothes at the model’s first 
sitting. But take a few pictures that are quite decollette. At this point 
discontinue the sitting. At the second sitting the model will fre¬ 
quently suggest of her own accord that nude pictures be taken.** 

From being very timid and shrinking at the first sitting in the 
nude a model is apt, unless she is restrained from it, to swing reck- 

*1 cannot pass over this subject without pausing to pay tribute to the late Arthur Kales for his 
remarkable skill in dealing with models. No one knew so truly as he how to obtain the finest 
response from a model, and no one ever treated his models with greater kindliness and tact. He 
worked with many models; but whether he was dealing with Ruth St. Denis, a bucolic beauty-contest 
winner, or the humblest Hollywood extra—all were treated with the identical fine consideration and 
impersonality. These relationships were marked with the same delicacy that characterized the un¬ 
forgettable bromoil transfers of this great pictorialist. 


♦♦Further discussion of the diplomacy involved in asking a model to pose in the nude will be 
found in Monsters & Madonnas (Cinderella). 


214 





“Ionia” 


William Mortensen 


l 


215 






lessly to the other extreme. While changes in set-up are being made, 
she will lounge about unclothed in commonplace, casual attitudes, 
smoking a cigarete, or even dash to answer the telephone. 

Such careless procedure on the part of the model reacts to her own 
disadvantage, and to the disadvantage of the artist and the picture. 
The plastic representation of the nude must maintain an impression 
of remoteness and ideality. Nothing can so utterly destroy this 
ideality as the sight of the nude body in familiar and commonplace 
attitudes engaged in familiar and commonplace activities. 

Therefore, the model should wear, and the artist should see that 
she wears, a robe or covering of some sort when leaving or returning 
to her dressing room, and she should resume this garment at all 
pauses in the sitting. There is no issue of morality involved here; it 
is simply good sense that both model and artist should protect them¬ 
selves from the consequences of disillusionment. 

Empathy . 

The aestheticians who have studied the psychological bases of art 
have evolved one concept that is of genuine value to the practical 
artist. This is the notion of “empathy” (a translation of the German 
term “Einfiihlung”). 

This word is possibly alarming in appearance, but its meaning is 
simple, and the concept which it involves is a familiar one. The 
meaning is perhaps best appreciated by literally translating the Ger¬ 
man term: Einfiihlung means “feeling into”. This term expresses our 
constant human tendency to project ourselves into the object which 
we contemplate, and to participate, by a sort of inner mimicry, in 
its activity. 

For example, when looking at a mountain we say, “The mountain 
rises above the plain”. Looking at the plain, we say, “It spreads out”. 
Looking at a church with an inordinately large tower, we say, “The 
tower crushes the church”. Of course, the mountain does not actually 
rise, the plain does not really spread itself at all, nor is the church 
actually crushed. What happens is that the upward sloping lines of 
the mountain give us a feeling of rising, the horizontal lines of the 


216 


plain give us a feeling of extension, and the bulk of the tower gives 
us a feeling of weight. These feelings we project into, and identify 
with, the objects that cause them. This “feeling of oneself into” a 
contemplated object and the tendency to emotionally identify oneself 
with the object is what constitutes empathy. 

The concept of empathy is of real use in understanding and 
criticizing pictures. It is particularly helpful in discovering the 
obscurer faults in pictures. To all appearances everything is correct 
and well arranged in a given composition: yet the picture is felt to 
he all wrong. Analysis may reveal faulty empathy. Perhaps, for 
example, the thrust of a certain line may not be sufficiently balanced 
by the weight of an opposing mass. 

We are particularly sensitive to faults of empathy in nude pic¬ 
tures. We are quick to identify ourselves with any strain or dis¬ 
comfort that is depicted or implied. A sensitive and imaginative 
person may feel actual physical discomfort in contemplating a nude 
of faulty empathy. 

Outrageous and distressing instances of faulty empathy in nudes 
can be found in the pages of any photographic journal or annual 
today. 

A Black-List of Nudes. 

It is a melancholy fact that the bad nudes in photographic jour¬ 
nals, annuals and portfolios far exceed in number the good nudes. 
The bad nudes, indeed, are so predominant and common that one 
may observe a certain grotesque standardization in their badness. 
Numerous well-defined and readily recognizable types may be 
identified among them. It will prove useful to name and discuss 
some of these types, for nothing could give us a clearer impression 
of the importance of empathic considerations in nude photography. 

A considerable number of these types owe their badness to vari¬ 
ous faults of empathy. Others are simply hackneyed, banal, or 
foolish. We will list the types of bad empathy first. For examples, 
simply thumb through any photographic publication. 


217 





First on the list is the previously discussed 
Nujol nude. This practice of drenching the 
body in oil creates a very unpleasant empathic 
impression of sliininess and uncleanliness. It 
also offends against the structure of the body 
by placing violent highlights in places where 
highlights have no business to be. A deriva¬ 
tive of the Nujol nude is the radiator-cap nude. 
(Figure 180.) 

Another familiar type of nude hows her 
head heavily upon her arm. Everything sags 
wearily—breasts, pelvis and abdomen partici¬ 
pate in a general prolapsus. Whether her agony 
is spiritual or physical is difficult to say; but 
since the empathic implication of impending 
nausea outweighs all else, we call this the mal 
de mer nude. 

There is one type of nude that always 
gives the beholder a start of embarrassment 
and a desire to back out with confused apolo¬ 
gies. This is the prudy-nudy. She disposes of 
her hands with such accuracy and cowers in 
such an ecstasy of modesty that the blushing 
observer feels a kindred embarrassment. The 
arch-priestess of the prudy-nudy cult is Sep¬ 
tember Morn. 



Occasionally one encounters a nude in 
which the curious and violent angles suggest 
either that an unpleasant accident has taken 
place or that the model is not flesh and blood 
at all, but rather life-like rag doll. This we 
may designate as the dislocated nude. The 
faulty empathy is obvious. 


218 






Akin to the dislocated nude, and some¬ 
what commoner, is the pretzel nude. In this 
case the limbs are woven in circular and inter¬ 
locking patterns. The bad empathy of this 
contortionist feat is due to the sense of strain 
and the denial of the normal structural rela¬ 
tionships of the limbs. 

We have already discussed and shown in 
Part One an example of the speckled nude. 
These cast shadows of Venetian blinds, foliage, 
window screens, etc., are all examples of bad 
empathy. The imposed pattern of the shadows 
is quite irrelevant to bodily structure, and the 
suggestion of a mechanical pattern on the skin 
is most unpleasant. 

Another sort of bad empathy results from 
misplaced ingenuity in the choice of camera 
angle. Skyscrapers, or the towering cliffs of 
Bryce Canyon, may possibly be made more 
imposing and startling by a low camera. But 
not the nude figure. The worm's eye nude is 
a parody of the human form, which seems 
afflicted simultaneously with elephantiasis and 
microcephalism. 

Examples of the blubber nude are all too 
common in modern European photography. 
These figures are embellished with rubber 
tires around the middle and break out every¬ 
where into lolloping rolls of flesh. 

The blubber nude and certain related 
species (the pimpled nude and the hirsute 
nude ) have constituted the so-called photo¬ 
graphic purists’ contribution to the art of the 
nude—posterior views of fat women, massive 



219 



lumps of flesh, areas of unwholesome skin, all rendered with the 
most meticulous attention to detail and texture. 

It is undeniably true that there is a peculiar photographic 
pleasure to be obtained from the rendition of delicate detail, and 
that there is a world of new and unsuspected beauty to be found in 
the study of the surface textures of the most commonplace objects. 
But this passion for texture and detail is grotesquely inappropriate 
to the representation of the nude. The purists reason in the same 
fallacious vein as Katisha, the elderly and scantly appreciated Gil¬ 
bert and Sullivan heroine. “I have a left shoulder blade that is a 
miracle of loveliness. People come miles to see it. My right elbow 
has a fascination that few can resist. It is on view Tuesdays and 
Fridays, on presentation of visiting card. As for my circulation, it 
is the largest in the world.” 

But the power and attraction of the nude does not reside in these 
details. Not the shoulder blade, not the elbow, not even the stupen¬ 
dous circulation, but the general plastic impression, is the thing of 
ultimate importance in a nude. 

Another faulty type of nude, to return to 
our list, may be described as the abraded nude. 
The model is represented as sitting, reclining 
or lurking in surroundings that are utterly at 
variance with the delicacy of her nude body. 
The empathic reaction from the spectacle of 
a nude body seated on rough stone is exceed¬ 
ingly unpleasant, yet the act is often repre¬ 
sented. Sometimes the model is represented 
as lying among harsh spikes of grass: more 
bad empathy. 

To the threat of abrasion and contusion is 
frequently added another—over-exposure to 
ultra-violet radiation. And then we see the 
poor girl, white and pale of skin, posing among 
the cactus and lizards under a blazing South¬ 
ern sun. This furnishes us with the sun-burnt 
nude. 



220 


An opposite type, but of equally bad 
empathy, is the goose flesh nude. This unhappy 
model poses among the reeds at the pond’s 
edge while the water laps coldly at her knees. 

The foregoing nudes are all distinguished 
by bad empathy. There remains another group 
of equally characteristic and well-typed had 
nudes that is marked not so much by faulty 
empathy as by banality. They represent the 
effort of the empty mind to create something 
“artistic” by falling back on stereotyped and 
vacuous formulas. They all pertain to the 
hollow and pretentious domain of fake art. 
Some of the poses that we are about to discuss 
have become a little too hackneyed for use 
on calendars, but they still occupy large space 
in the salons. 

The first of these is the hippity-hop nude 
who prances her way with exhausting exuber¬ 
ance through the pages of foreign photo¬ 
graphic annuals. Her arms are always up¬ 
ward-flung, she generally poses precariously 
on one toe, but her abandon occasionally leads 
her to leap into the air. 

A sedate variant of this type is the seaside- 
sunset-silhouette nude. The elements are fairly 
constant: one setting sun, one breaking wave, 
one yard of crepe de chine, one piece of sea¬ 
weed, and one lightly tripping nude who is 
outlined against the sky and the shining sand. 
Sometimes she appears in a more meditative 
and mal de mer attitude, and sometimes the 
scene is enlivened by the presence of three 
lightly tripping nudes and three yards of crepe 
de chine. 





221 



The useful fabric mentioned above has 
created its own type of nude. The crepe de 
chine nude takes us hack to the happy inno¬ 
cent days of the first photographic nudes— 
days which must have been marked by peak 
production in the Brooklyn silk mills. Young 
men sallied forth on Sunday afternoons with 
their view cameras, their girl friends, and the 
necessary yard of fabric. A delicate and com¬ 
plicated technique was evolved for manipu¬ 
lating this fragile textile—floating it on the 
breeze in loops, volutes and swirls. 

Related to both the crepe de chine nude 
and the prudy-nudy is the portiere nude . It is 
related to the latter by its slight touch of 
pudicity. The head is always turned modestly 
aside, and the two yards of velvet fall in dis¬ 
creet apron fashion down the front. 

Jewelry is the evident weakness of the 
Tiffany nude. Sometimes she sits at her dress¬ 
ing table and approvingly regards in a hand 
mirror the stunning effect of the numerous 
rings, necklaces, earrings and tiaras with which 
she has adorned herself. And sometimes she 
is just passively festooned with ropes of pearls, 
like a Christmas tree. 

Somewhat akin to the Tiffany nude is one 
type which suggests that the model has made 
herself very much at home in a gifte shoppe. 
This we may call the knick-knack knude. Prac¬ 
tically indispensable and inevitable properties 
for this type are a couple of urns or vawses, a 
bearskin rug, a scarf draped with conscien¬ 
tious elegance, a crystal ball and a peacock fan. 


222 





The Emily Post nude is a very superior 
creature. Others may be subject to doubts and 
misapprehensions, but not she. She makes 
clear by her lofty and disdainful expression 
that she is above all this, knows instantly which 
fork to use, and understands perfectly the in¬ 
tricate problems of social precedence involved 
in introducing an archbishop to a grand duch¬ 
ess (or vice versa). 

The final type is a very familiar one, the 
Ah Me Nude (sometimes known as the Welt - 
schmerz nude). The pain of it all, the un- 
supportable cosmic pang, is the evident motive 
for her epic gesture of despair. 

These are some of the nudes that we might 
just as well do without. The photographic 
world would be much better off if all Nujol 
nudes, mal de mer nudes, liippity-hop nudes, 
pretzel nudes, knick-knack nudes, etc., etc., 
etc., were to “suddenly and softly vanish away”. I can hear protests 
that the elimination of these types of nudes would practically strip 
bare the pages of the photographic journals and the walls of the 
salons. To this horrendous prospect I would say, “Bravo!” Or I might 
even speak English and say, “Swell!” 

For this cataclysm would still leave us well provided for. The 
masters of the past have left us an ample heritage of nudes done 
without benefit of Nujol, knickknacks or crepe de chine. And modern 
artists in black and white such as Norman Lindsay are still inter¬ 
preting anew the wonder, dignity and divinity of the human body. 

Figure and Personality. 

The quest for the perfect figure is often a difficult and disappoint¬ 
ing one. Models that have seemed to promise much when viewed 
with their clothes on will many times prove to be photographically 
hopeless when their clothes are removed. Because of the delicacy of 



223 



the issues involved in the relationship of artist and model, it is most 
advisable that the artist learn to judge the excellence of the figure 
in advance without subjecting himself to the disappointment, or the 
model to the embarrassment, of an unsuccessful sitting in the nude. 

It is helpful to realize that there is a frequent close relationship 
between personality and figure. Indeed, according to the opinion of 
a certain school of physiologists, physical lineaments and personality 
are derived from a common source—the functioning of the endocrine 
glands. Even if one does not accept their materialistic conclusions 
unreservedly, these physiologists are able to offer helpful suggestions 
to the puzzled artist. 

There is, for example, a certain personality that is always prov¬ 
ing a source of disappointment to the questing photographer of the 
nude. This is the woman of the clinging-vine type (the “post- 
pituitary” type, in the cant of the gland specialists). This sort is 
very deceptive, for she frequently has a Dresden china delicacy of 
features, with finely turned hands, wrists, feet and legs. But in the 
nude she proves to be lumpy of body, with wide hips and heavy 
breasts. An extremely tapered hand, beautiful but ineffectual, is a 
token of this type, and usually indicates wide hips. 

The phlegmatic type of woman seldom has a good figure. Nor 
has the retiring, introspective type. Women with secrets have the 
worst figures of all. 

The best models for photography of the nude will generally be 
found among the so-called “thyroid” types. These are characterized 
by energy and grace. Their faces are distinguished by a notable 
breadth of brow and by large and brilliant eyes. Their figures are 
slender and compact, with well-proportioned breasts, trim hips, and 
straight, finely shaped legs. Effective exaggerations of these char- 
acterists are furnished by the “hyper-thyroid” type. 

The camera is notoriously prone to increase the apparent size 
and heaviness of the figure that it photographs. Therefore, for 
photographic purposes, a figure that is small and spare and tightly 
knit is to be preferred to one that inclines to voluptuousness or to 
Junoesque proportions. Figures of the noble sort that Michelangelo 


224 


A 


B 


Figure 193 
The Elbow Test 




placed on the Sistine ceiling the camera would render as gross and 
overweight. 

Realize also that the face is a very poor guide to the excellence of 
the figure. For some reason the Creator has very oddly assorted faces 
and figures, assigning beautiful heads to squat torsos, and crowning 
perfect bodies with very imperfect faces. My own observations indi¬ 
cate, for example, that a fine figure is quite apt to be accompanied 
with a receding chin. 

The structure of the calves, ankles, elbows, neck and shoulders 
provide criterions by which the structure of the rest of the body may 
usually be safely judged. A calf diminishing into a slender ankle , 
although a conventional token of beauty, does not usually signify a 
good figure. On the contrary, such structure goes with a figure of the 
post-pituitary type, and indicates wide hips and thighs and heavy 
breasts. Rather, a fairly substantial foot and ankle without an unduly 
bulging calf should be sought for. Should it be desired, as a con¬ 
cession to popular standards, to thin the ankle somewhat, this may 
be easily accomplished on the negative or print. 

If, when the joint is bent at right angles, the elbow bone protrudes 
noticeably (Figure 193, a), it is probable that the crest of the ilium 
(the hip bone) protrudes in a similar manner. In nudes, such a fault 
of the ilium is a serious blemish, as it breaks the smooth sweep of 
the contour line. Such a picture as Youth , for example, would be 


225 


impossible to conceive or carry out if the line were interrupted by 
any irregularity at the hip. 

Fashions and Figures. 

Another influence on the female figure almost as potent as the 
glands is furnished by the commercial artist who draws the illustra¬ 
tions in the fashion journals. No more striking confirmation could 
be provided for Oscar Wilde’s paradox that “Nature imitates Art”. 
As the sunsets took on new colorations after Turner painted them, 
so the female figure hastened to assume the configuration that Erte 
ascribed to it. Certainly the “flapper”—who is not yet quite forgotten 
—was largely the result of Nature’s imitation of John Held, Jr.’s, 
fantastic drawings. 

Present day women’s fashions are constructed for figures of the 
“adrenal” type—nervous, tightly-drawn, and masculine. This type 
of figure, and its jittery implications, is very unfortunate photograph¬ 
ically. This is shown in the current photographic vogue of fashion 
magazines—angles, harsh, insistent and masculine; broken wrists; 
weird fore-shortenings; hyper-extended elbows; butchery by light. 
No trace of feminine grace is allowed to intrude; for it would slow 
down the violence of the action. 

It seems to he a grave problem which will hold out the longer— 
Nature or the photographers. Many of their recent pictures suggest 
that with just one more twist the models will have to go to the hospital 
with broken hones, wrenched tendons, dislocated clavicles, and 
Charlie-horses. 

Nudes Are Not All . 

It has been necessary in this book to stress the structural basis 
of posing. For this reason there has been an emphasis on the nude. 
Do not be misled by this emphasis. Nudes are not the end all and 
be all of pictorial art. Nor are they the ultimate test of a model’s 
usefulness. Nudes represent, after all, but a small fraction of the 
finest pictures. Many of the best pictorialists have never exhibited 
any nudes. 


226 


Nudes are a very difficult matter—both from the directorial and 
the pictorial point of view. Only the best of material and the finest 
of figures should be used. The taking of nude pictures should not 
be gone about in a hurry. Don’t rush matters; let the question of 
posing in the nude be arrived at logically and naturally, when both 
artist and model are prepared for it. 

The impetuous photographer who rushes into a sitting, flaunting 
the uncompromising motto of “Nudes or Nothing”, inevitably comes 
to grief. At most he obtains a few snapshots of an alarmed, em¬ 
barrassed and awkward girl without any clothes on. But no nudes. 
And the chances are about twenty to one that that model will never 
pose for him again. 

Several sittings and numerous experiments with costume and 
costume elements should, as a rule, precede any work with the nude. 
And when you have finished, the probability is great that you will 
find that you have secured your best pictures in the earlier sittings. 

The Use of Groups . 

Many interesting pictorial projects require the use of several 
models. Group pictures of necessity come in the plastic category— 
with the artist dominant. Models that are normally of the coopera¬ 
tive type may be advantageously employed in group pictures, but 
they must subordinate themselves in the passive attitude of the 
plastic model. Unity in a group picture may be obtained only by 
the external influence of the artist in effecting coordination of the 
parts. 

Group pictures require careful preparation in advance. Unless 
the sitting is to be a total loss, certain requisites must be well under 
control before getting under way. Among these pre-established 
requisites we may mention: 

1. Generalized subject. 

2. Several tentative sketches. 

3. Correct number of models, chosen for type. 

4. Costumes or costume elements suitable to subject. 


227 


5. Setting or selected location, with large properties in 
place. 

6. Detailed accessories—hand properties, make up mate¬ 
rials, pins, combs, scissors, brushes, cold cream, make up 
rags, and first-aid kit. All these in charge of some respon¬ 
sible individual. 

Building the Group Picture. 

Only when the requisites are present and under control should 
the building of the picture be undertaken. 

As a rule, a single character will dominate the composition in a 
group picture. In constructing the picture, it will be built toward 
this dominating character. 

Therefore, first establish the general position and the outline of 
the pose of the model who plays this dominating character. There 
is at this time no effort at detail or at refining the pose. With the 
principal figure maintaining, in a relaxed and easy manner, the 
general import of the pose, the model who plays the character of 
secondary importance is placed in position and his pose adjusted 
in relationship to the first one. There is still no effort at refining 
detail. Then the third model is placed and posed in relation to the 
other two. The other models (if any) are now added to the well 
organized group of three. 

When the preliminary physical set-up is complete, the model in 
the dominating position is instructed to add the emotional element 
to his pose. His pose is now carefully adjusted for detail and 
errors are eliminated. 

Finally, all the other models in the group take the emotionalized 
version of their pose, and are subjected to adjustment and elimina¬ 
tion of errors. 

In this stage of final adjustment it will be found advantageous to 
get fresh angles and aspects of the picture in formation—to take 
the picture by surprise, as it were. Various expedients are resorted 
to in order to get this freshened vision: looking away from the 
picture for a moment and then looking back suddenly; looking at 


228 


“A Family Group—Xmas 1914 ” 


William Mortensen 


the picture with the head turned sideways; looking at it upside- 
down between the legs. Under this sort of scrutiny new relation¬ 
ships will discover themselves, incipient notan patterns and linear 
rhythms* will ask to be emphasized, and egregious errors will sud¬ 
denly become evident. In this manner one is able to surprise a 
glimpse of the picture as a whole instead of the collection of details 
that one has been laboring with. 

In the final stages of adjustment start taking exposures. Take 

•Further treatment of these matters must await the completion of the author’s volume on 
Composition. 




many exposures. Much effort is expended in assembling the numer¬ 
ous elements that go into a group picture. Usually considerable 
expense is involved in bringing them together. It is the worst kind 
of economy under these circumstances to be stingy of exposures. 
Every time a slight adjustment is made in the set-up, record it with 
a new set of exposures. 

The first idea of the picture, as planned and sketched, should 
not be regarded as a canon to be adhered to, but simply as a point of 
departure. In working with a group, variants from the original set¬ 
up will invariably suggest themselves. Often the gesture or reaction 
of a subordinate character will suggest a fresh set-up with this 
character in the dominating position. These hints and suggestions 
should be acted upon, for they will frequently prove to he the 
genesis of pictures more expressive and spontaneous than the one 
originally planned. 

Personal Relationships in Dealing with Groups. 

Dealing with a group of models in such a manner as to secure 
the best possible physical and emotional response is a problem of 
considerable complexity. The following suggestions will prove use¬ 
ful in keeping the sitting running smoothly. 

To avoid interruptions annoying and distracting to the models 
the photographer should keep track carefully of the mechanical 
complications of his camera and lights. For models to be worked 
up to a difficult pose and violent emotional state and then be forced 
to wait indefinitely while film is changed or lights are juggled is an 
unjustifiable hardship as well as an anti-climax. 

The sitting is put on a much more familiar and cooperative basis 
if the photographer will take pains to learn and use the first names 
of all the models. For some reason, a model responds far more 
readily and wholeheartedly when addressed as John or Mary than 
as Mr. Smith or Mi ss Jones. 

Be careful, in giving directions to models, always to prefix the 
direction with the model’s name. To give the name after the direc¬ 
tion is almost as bad as giving no name at all. Much time and energy 


230 


is lost in group sittings through failure to observe this simple rule. 
If the photographer says, for example, “Turn your head to the 
right, John”, every head in the group will either turn, or start to 
turn, as directed. Each person of the group is on the qui vive for 
direction, and will be unconsciously resentful to discover he has 
been misled. On the other hand, “John, turn your head to the right”, 
secures instant and efficient response where it is desired. 

In a group of models there are bound to be rivalries and incip¬ 
ient jealousies. The one in the subordinate position is very sure that 
he (or she) is just as good as the one in the featured spot. The Sec¬ 
ond Grave Digger is certain to feel that he is uniquely qualified for 
the role of Hamlet. To keep peace in the family, and to prevent these 
jealousies from taking root, the photographer will be wise to see that 
in the course of his changes in set-up, every one of his models gets a 
chance at a featured position. This does not necessarily mean 
switching the roles about; for it is conceivable that an interesting 
picture and a fresh conception of the situation might result from 
subordinating Hamlet to the Second Grave Digger. 


231 


CHAPTER FOUR 


The Personality Model. 


The second condition of working with the model is that in which 
the model is dominant. The model in this case is designated as the 
“personality type”. 

A wide variety of subjects is embraced under this term. It in¬ 
cludes professional persons, stage and screen actresses, authors, 
public figures, statesmen, and all such celebrities. It includes chil¬ 
dren, babies, dogs and cats. It includes persons, perhaps otherwise 
unknown to fame, who are notable for being “types” or “charac¬ 
ters”, or for possessing unusual facial quirks. It includes, finally, 
all sitters for “commercial portraits”. 

In all these cases the model is the dominant factor in the sitting. 
The photographer is the passive means of recording the fact that is 
set before him. His artistic task consists in giving this fact the most 
effective presentation. 

To discuss adequately the multitudinous problems of so-called 
“commercial portraiture” would lead us far beyond the scope of 
this book. As typical problems involving the use of “personality 
models”, I will consider only three of the subjects mentioned in the 
list above: the celebrity, the child as a pictorial model, and the 
building of a picture around a personal “quirk”. 

Photographing the Celebrity. 

To nearly every photographer comes at some time opportunity 
to photograph a celebrity. The celebrity may be a minor one—but, 


232 



“/Vi/s Asther” 


William Mortensen 


233 



nevertheless, a Personage. It is very much to the advantage of the 
photographer to he able to make the most of such an opportunity; 
for there is an undeniable professional prestige to be gained through 
association with the great or near-great. To have made one effective 
portrait of George Bernard Shaw, for example, would bring one 
more kudos than a thousand excellent portraits of nonentities. 

When such an opportunity presents itself, the photographer 
must first of all realize that he is to deal with a model of the domi¬ 
nant “personality” type. In other words, the photographer’s role is 
not to be that of the Great Creative Artist; hut simply that of the 
alert and efficient recording instrument. 

If he is not already informed, the photographer should be careful 
to find out all he can about his celebrity in advance of the sitting. 
This research is useful in two ways. In the first place it gives a clue 
to the appropriate sort of pictorial treatment, which would naturally 
Vary according to whether the celebrity was a pugilist, a philoso¬ 
pher, a trapeze artist or a singer. Secondly, the fact that the pho¬ 
tographer is well-informed about him is gratifying to the inevitable 
and natural vanity of his subject. 

If he has the opportunity, the photographer should look at other 
and former pictures of his prospective subject; for the celebrity is 
apt to be conservative in his tastes and to wish to be presented more 
or less as he has been presented. 

The photographer must not be shocked to find, when he meets 
the Personage, that the latter holds photographers in general in 
very low esteem, and is apt to state that none of them have been 
able to capture the elusive quality of his personality. 

In his conference with his subject before the sitting, he will of 
course take pains to find out the latter’s wishes. He will be told one 
of two things: 

1. “I want my picture to be thus and thus and thus.” 

2. “I leave it to you.” 

In the former case, he will try to fulfill the instructions as fully as 
possible. In the latter case, he will realize that this attitude, while 
allowing him a little more freedom, by no means gives him carte 


234 



William Mortensen 


235 






























blanche in the sitting, for the subject’s personality is still the prin¬ 
cipal issue. 

Roughly speaking there are two general types of celebrities. One 
is the sort whose face and personality is their stock in trade. This 
is the “Personal Appearance” type of celebrity. To this class belong, 
of course, the well-known personalities of stage and screen. Here 
also must be grouped some of our statesmen. Mae West may be re¬ 
garded as the archetype of this class. 

Celebrities of this type are greatly dependent on public favor. 
They have a carefully evolved pseudo-personality which represents 
them before the public. This fictitious, synthetic personality must, 
of course, be the only phase of them that is presented in a picture. 
To portray Mae West, for example, digging in her garden, dressed 
in slacks and her hair falling in her eyes, would be quite disastrous 
to the public-personality which she has created and carefully fos¬ 
tered. Of course, this canny lady would never assent to such por¬ 
trayal, and it would be a foolhardy photographer that would attempt 
it. 

Whether or not this synthetic personality has any substance of 
truth in it, whether it represents at all the real person, is a com¬ 
pletely alien issue. The photographer of the celebrity must make 
up his mind that it is not his business to be a crusader for truth or 
an iconoclastic revealer of sham. His job is simply to carry on the 
tradition that the celebrity represents. 

The second type of celebrity is the sort whose contact with the 
public is not direct, through his face and personality, but indirect, 
through his work. To this class belong authors, scientists, artists 
and musicians. 

A splendid example of photography of this type of celebrity is 
afforded by Steichen’s dignified portrait of H. G. Wells.* 

Although celebrities of this sort are, as a rule, much less 
dictatorial about the treatment of their pictures, the fact does not 
give any greater freedom to the artist. Personality is still the domi- 

*See Camera Craft. January, 1936. 


236 




William Mortensen 


237 



















nant issue, although in this case there is seldom any problem of 
maintaining a synthetically created personality. Equally with the first 
type there must he a complete absence of obvious influence by the 
artist. This is what is so finely realized in Steichen’s portrait: it is 
H. G. Wells as H. G. Wells, not H. G. Wells as the Great Author. 

The photographer must he prepared to find, when he looks 
over his proofs, that he has gotten some bad angles of his sitter’s 
head. Indeed, some of the proofs are apt to suggest that the Great 
Man is not quite so wise, noble or honest as he is reputed. The pho¬ 
tographer should not he discouraged or alarmed at finding these 
grotesque lapses from greatness among his proofs. He must realize 
that all the standard likenesses of the celebrity have undoubtedly 
been carefully selected. All these bad proofs should he destroyed. 
It is an excellent gesture of good faith to destroy both the bad proofs 
and the corresponding negatives in the presence of the subject. 

Now, it is not likely that many of you who read this will have 
an opportunity to photograph either Mae West or H. G. Wells, hut 
it is entirely within reason that you may wish to photograph the 
politically ambitious state senator or the author of pulp magazine 
“westerns” who is stopping in your town. The same general truths 
hold, and the same procedure should be followed. The state senator 
would, presumably, belong to the Mae West category, and would 
demand to be presented with the same consideration for his care¬ 
fully synthesized personality of statecraft, sagacity, and love for 
the common people. The western author would fall in the Wells 
class, and would require to be shown objectively and without elab¬ 
oration, “as is”. 

The Child as a Model. 

It is traditional on the stage that children and dogs always 
“steal the show”. This is because both children and dogs are always 
uncompromisingly themselves and stand out in shocking three- 
dimensional contrast to the flat, conventionalized theatrical figures 
of the other actors. 

Occasionally a child will be found that makes a very fine model. 


2.38 



239 





Its pictures will have a strangely arresting quality that may surprise 
even the photographer himself. This element which a child con¬ 
tributes to a picture is its own, and is not the result of direction or 
interpretation. 

Although an intelligent child may take some direction, it still 
remains primarily a “personality model”. Little preparation is 
possible in working with a child model, except in technical and 
material matters. Much dependence must he placed on waiting for 
the expressive moment and happy accident. 

Discretion must be exercised in the choice of pictorial themes 
for the child model. It is ill fitted to the interpretive or emotional 
roles, but its strong personal appeal makes it very effective for a bit 
of sentiment. 

The Personal Quirk. 

Every day we meet and see people that are characterized by odd 
and individual tricks of expression—a knowing lift of the eyebrow, 
a one-sided smile, or a quaintly vagrant lock of hair. These quirks 
are frequently very effective pictorially. In securing these quirk 
portraits we have to do with another problem of the “personality 
model”. 

In a sitting with such a model the artist must be very much on 
the alert to catch the desired expression “on the fly”, so to speak. 
Quick shooting is often necessary to do this. This kind of portrait, 
however, has nothing to do with the candid camera, or any of its 
works. Something depends on the happy accident of getting such 
a portrait, but it is an accident that is planned and schemed for. 
Preliminary analysis prepares one to take advantage of the accident 
when and if it happens. 

At the sitting such a model is very apt to put on a conventional 
and “party” air that effectively smothers the desired quirk. Consid¬ 
erable skill is frequently demanded to call it forth again. This was 
the case with Wong (Figure 194). Wong was a Chinese cook and 
had been for many years a familiar figure around town as he went 
about his shopping with a huge market basket on his arm. I had 


240 



“W ong” 


William Morlensen 


Figure 194 


24] 



















noted the wise and humorous twinkle in his eye, and had long 
wanted to take a picture of him as I saw him every day. He was very 
pleased when I asked him to pose for me. To my consternation, he 
arrived for his sitting, not in his everyday cook’s garb, but in his 
stiff and conventional Sunday best, with pince nez astride his nose, 
his hair slicked back, and his face as devoid of expression as his 
starched collar. Of course, it was necessary first to take the pictures 
that he wanted. Then, only by extended diplomacy and super¬ 
oriental wiles was I able to cover up the black coat, coax away the 
glasses, release his hair to follow its natural bent, and, finally, to 
lure back his own characteristic expression. 


242 


CHAPTER FIVE 


The Cooperative Model 


The cooperative model may be defined as standing between, and 
sometimes a little above, the plastic model and the personality 
model. It stands between them because it combines the phases of 
the artist-dominant situation and the model-dominant situation that 
respectively characterize these two. It stands above them because 
the finest pictures are based on such cooperation between artist and 
model. 

The degree and kind of cooperation that the model gives will 
vary widely in individual cases. Both the plastic model and the 
personality model (especially of the “quirk” type) may, through 
intelligence and experience before the camera, work into the “co¬ 
operative” way of doing things. Since they approach the cooperative 
condition from opposite sides—one from an artist-dominant situa¬ 
tion and the other from a model-dominant situation—it follows that 
the quality of their cooperation is quite different. We may thus dis¬ 
tinguish two types of cooperation. 

1. The first type consists in an intelligent reaction to plastic 
procedure and conditions. The pure plastic model is merely pas¬ 
sively receptive. Examples of this plastic-cooperative condition are 
afforded by The Tantric Sorcerer (Pictorial Lighting , pg. 65) and 
Market Girl (Monsters & Madonnas ). 

2. In the second type of cooperation, the model simply acts out 


243 


the scene or character which he has himself conceived and prepared 
—and, in some cases, costumed. The artist observes and catches the 
pictorial aspects of what the model does. This way of working lends 
itself to scenes and characters depending upon subtleties of facial 
expression. These subtleties, of course, do not permit of plastic 
adjustment. Napoleon as posed by Peter Lorre (Figure 195) is an 
illustration of the personality-cooperative condition of working. 

Few models are able to enter into full and complete cooperation 
with the artist. Although this condition may be productive of fine 
pictures, it is dangerously unstable and may readily degenerate into 
an impossible situation leading to boredom, antagonism, and mutual 
contempt. The artist must, therefore, exercise much discretion in 
admitting models to this footing of complete cooperation. 

Ways of Cooperation. 

There are numerous ways in which a model may usefully co¬ 
operate with the artist. 

The simplest sort of cooperation is that which a plastic or per¬ 
sonality type of model is able to give as soon as he or she has had a 
little experience before the camera—quick and ready response to 
directorial commands. With increasing experience the model is able 
to give more intelligent cooperation: he or she begins to appreciate 
the two-dimensional limitations of the pictorial medium, and ac¬ 
quires some knowledge of plastic faults or errors that are to be 
avoided. 

An interested and enthusiastic model is often able to give much 
assistance in assembling costumes or building sets. 

An intelligent model is frequently valuable in working out re¬ 
search problems. Research is a very important phase of picture 
making. Its importance lies not so much in the elements of literal 
fact and physical accuracy that it contributes, but in the added rich¬ 
ness of background and understanding that one is enabled to bring 
to bear upon the problem. 

The model may also cooperate by suggesting pictorial ideas and 
in conferring with the artist preliminary to the sitting. Here we 
touch on debatable ground. Excellent pictorial suggestions are 


241 



“Napoleon, Portrayed by Peter Lorre” William Mortensen 

Figure 195 


215 





sometimes offered by models, but the artist must be exceedingly 
chary in accepting them. 

The Pattern and Procedure of a Sitting. 

There is a great deal more to taking a picture than merely set¬ 
ting up the camera and the model opposite each other, taking a few 
exposures and calling it a day. A sitting is a psychological problem 
of hidden mental and spiritual forces even more than it is a physical 
problem of tangible elements such as cameras, lighting units, films, 
etc., etc. A sitting is a creative act, and as such it should conform to 
the universal dramatic pattern of such acts. 

Let me outline this pattern. 

1. Begin the sitting with a definite and positive act. It is dan¬ 
gerous, not to say fatal, to start on a note of doubt, of hesitation, of 
“Let me see, now—Assurance is needed throughout the sitting, 
but especially at the beginning. The artist’s motto should be “Leap 
before you look”. So—begin the sitting with an act. It is not cru¬ 
cially important what this act is. If you can think of nothing better, 
move your front lighting unit, with a firm and determined gesture, 
two inches to the right. Or tell the model to sit up straighter. Or say 
to your model, “Excellent!”—and immediately take an exposure. 

2. By this initial act—whatever it was—you have created some¬ 
thing tangible. You now have a point to carry on from. One act 
suggests another act. Keep on going along the line you have started. 
Vacillation now weakens the whole structure and largely vitiates 
the advantage you have secured by your initial act. 

3. Suggestions will now begin to spontaneously assert them¬ 
selves. Acting on these suggestions, make a few simple modifications 
of your basic idea. At this point you will have succeeded in record¬ 
ing the prosaic, rational substance of the model’s pose. 

4. Now that you are in control of the situation, the cooperative 
aspect of the model may assert itself. It is very dangerous at any 
earlier stage in the sitting to ask for or accept any suggestions from 
the model. By now the model’s interest will be aroused. The sitting 
is beginning to move; you are getting somewhere. The model’s in- 


246 


terest shows itself by participation , instead of mere acquiescence, in 

the sitting, and by quick instinctive anticipation of your wishes. V 

The model may at this point offer suggestions. These may be acted 

upon, because they come from one who, equally with you, is carried 

along on the mental current you have created. 

5. The current now becomes a torrent and sweeps you irresist¬ 
ibly with it. At the height of this experience there occurs a strange 
feeling of clarity. All things seem simple and easy. You may at 
this stage in the sitting try the craziest of things and bring them off 
triumphantly; for you will be sustained by the force you have 
evoked. 

6. Although toward the end of the sitting you are exhausted in 
mind and body, the model may still be seething with interest and 
fresh ideas. This interest should be satisfied, for good results are 
often secured in this final stage of the sitting. 

Where Shall I Find Models? 

Every once in a while I receive a piteous appeal from some pho¬ 
tographic amateur who has, it seems, everything his heart desires 
except something to take pictures of. One writes to this effect: “I 
live in a small town, and there are no models available. What shall 
I do?” Another states: “I live in a large city, and I don’t know 
where to look for models. What shall I do?” 

There is no secret in finding models, no need for extensive 
search, no necessity to know “the right people”. Just look about 
you. Unless you are a hermit, there is probably a very good model 
within fifty feet of you at this moment. 

To find models it is merely necessary to keep your eyes open 
and cultivate a critical appreciation of physical structure. The wait¬ 
ress who brought your coffee and doughnuts this morning may be a 
potential Sistine Madonna, and the brat who sold you a paper may 
be a Fra Angelico cherub. Among your friends, neighbors and rela¬ 
tives there are undoubtedly models of unsuspected ability. 

The painters of the past were never stopped for any lack of 
models. They haled in porters and fishwives from the streets and 


247 


children from the gutters and made saints and angels of them. They 
made keen and critical likenesses of their fellow burghers and their 
wives. And, just to keep their hand in, they looked in the mirror 
and made self-portraits. 

“But what shall I do,” I am asked, “when I see a bootblack, 
newsboy or waitress that I would like to have pose for me?” The 
answer is simple: Ask them. In asking them you are participating 
in a gamble in which the cards are stacked in your favor. The 
chances are at least nine in ten that the person will accept. Everyone 
is susceptible to flattery. The implication, or perhaps outright 
statement, that the person is “just the type” that you have been 
seeking is flattery of the most effective sort 

The art schools in the larger cities are able to supply the in¬ 
quirer with information and references to models. There are also 
models’ bureaus or agencies. The professional models that one ob¬ 
tains through these channels are, however, very limited in their use¬ 
fulness. Except for pictures along strictly conventional lines, such 
as fashion plates, they are rarely satisfactory. Modelling is for them 
merely a business, and they go through their ritual with disinter¬ 
ested, mechanical precision. 

The good pictures that I have secured from professional models 
have been very few indeed. My best results have been obtained 
from non-professionals—people who have had little or no previous 
experience before the camera. Some of them have been friends of 
mine, some of them have been casual acquaintances, and some of 
them (up to the moment that I asked them to pose) have been per¬ 
fect strangers. From models such as these one obtains the utmost of 
interest, enthusiasm, vitality and cooperation. 

Learn to see the pictorial qualities of the people that you meet 
and pass by every day. Don’t let your quest for a particular type of 
model render you unaware of the capacities of others. In your 
obsessing search for a perfect feminine figure, for example, you may 
be ignoring the pictorial possibilities of the patriarchal shoemaker 
on the corner and of the quaint dressmaker up the side street. 

Anything human that can be coaxed in front of a camera is po- 


248 


tentially a model. That which is in front of the camera is the indis¬ 
pensable basis of photographic art. The model, however, furnishes 
merely the basis. The word of command, the creative act that calls 
forth the pictorial form from this unformed flesh, can proceed only 
from the artist. . . . The model awaits you, the camera is ready, the 
lights are set. The rest is up to you. 


249 
















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APPENDIXES 



APPENDIX A 


The Rights of the Model. 


Releases. 

The photographer may not exhibit, sell or publish a picture 
without having secured the permission of the model who has posed 
for it. It is therefore advisable that the photographer always pro¬ 
tect himself by securing a written release of the model’s rights in 
the picture. Failure to take this precaution may land the photog¬ 
rapher in a great deal of unpleasantness and possible legal difficulty, 
particularly if nude pictures are involved. 

The following form is suggested for such releases: 


252 


RELEASE FORM FOR ADULTS 


., 193. 

In consideration of.’s taking photo¬ 

graphs of me, I hereby irrevocably authorize him, in his 
discretion, for his own account and without control of any 
kind by me (and whether such photographs be taken now or 
at any time in the future), to use, display, sell, publish, mod¬ 
ify, alter, combine with others, and otherwise treat or deal 
with any or all such photographs and any and all plates, 
films, prints, copies, enlargements, etchings, modifications, 
alterations, combinations and other treatments thereof, here¬ 
by conveying to him all property rights and privileges in 
connection therewith as well as in connection with any pho¬ 
tographs heretofore taken by him, together with the right to 
confer any or all such rights and privileges upon others, 
without obligation of any kind by him or anyone else except 
that my services for modelling shall be paid for at the rate 

of.per hour. 


(Signed) 


Witness: 


If the model is a minor, the release must be signed by parent 
guardian. The following form may be used in this case: 








RELEASE FORM FOR MINORS 


..., 193. 

In consideration of....’s taking pho¬ 
tographs of my daughter (son) ., 

I hereby irrevocably authorize him, in his discretion, for his 
own account and without control of any kind by me (and 
whether such photographs be taken now or at any time in the 
future), to use, display, sell, publish, modify, alter, combine 
with others, and otherwise treat or deal with any and all such 
photographs and any and all such plates, films, prints, copies, 
enlargements, etchings, modifications, alterations, combina¬ 
tions and other treatments thereof, hereby conveying to him 
all property rights and privileges in connection therewith as 
well as in connection with any photographs heretofore taken 
by him, together with the right to confer any or all such 
rights and privileges upon others, without obligation of any 
kind by him or anyone else except that my daughter (son) 

shall receive...per hour for her (his) 

services as a model. 


(Signed) 

Witness:. 


In order to prevent misunderstanding and possible loss of time 
and material, releases should always be arranged for and signed 
before the final prints are made. If the model has not previously 
posed in the nude, it is poor strategy to alarm her by bringing up 
the release and its suggested legal complications before the sitting. 
But when she is shown some excellent proofs and a fine test print, 
she will generally prove quite amenable in the matter of signing the 
release—particularly if the photographer makes it clear that he can 


2S4 









go no further in making pictures until the release is arranged for. 
Compensation. 

The labourer is worthy of his hire; and the model, if he or she 
merits the expenditure of time and material, is entitled to compen¬ 
sation. 

The photographer should no more expect a model to pose for 
him without compensation than he would expect a dentist to fill his 
teeth without payment or a butcher to supply him with pork chops 
gratis. The amount and nature of the compensation should be defi¬ 
nitely understood before starting the sitting. This understanding is 
an immediate aid toward placing the relationship on a businesslike 
and impersonal basis. 

The payment may take the form of prints or cash. The latter, 
being less debatable in value, is the preferable form—if the artist 
can afford it. The amount of payment may be somewhat adjusted 
to meet the model’s ability and the artist’s capacity to pay. I suggest 
a dollar an hour as a moderate and reasonable fee for the model— 
with a minimum of a dollar if the sitting runs for less than an hour. 

If the photographer is inclined to demur at this price, let him 
remember that in an hour’s time he would probably use a great deal 
more than a dollar’s worth of film. The model is entitled to at least 
as much credit as Eastman, Gevaert or Agfa. 

This scale of compensation is suggested as appropriate for the 
pictorial worker, who seldom realizes any substantial monetary re¬ 
turn from his pictures. However, the commercial photographer in 
the advertising field can properly afford larger payment. Indeed, 
some of the best commercial models in New York command fees 
upward of twenty-five dollars an hour. 

Regarding the Sale of Pictures. 

The signing of a release by the model affords legal protection 
for the photographer. But he must not feel that he is thereby re¬ 
leased from moral obligations. 

A photographer who becomes known for his work with the nude 
will in the natural course of events receive numerous offers to pur- 


255 


chase prints—some for advertising purposes, and some for private 
delectation. 

The sale of nude pictures to private individuals is risky business 
—even with releases duly signed and witnessed—and does not add 
to the reputation of any photographer. The best way to meet such 
offers is to quote prices sufficiently large to discourage further nego¬ 
tiation. 

The advisability of the sale of pictures—nude or otherwise— 
for advertising purposes depends entirely upon the kind of adver¬ 
tising. Before selling, the photographer should be assured of the 
dignity and worth of the use to which his picture—and his model— 
are to be put. 

The signed release is the model’s expression of confidence that 
the picture will not be put to an unworthy use. The photographer’s 
prospect for success depends in large measure upon the good will of 
his models. This good will may be maintained only by keeping up 
his reputation for consideration and fair dealing. 


Inquiries . 

The photographer must exercise the greatest of discretion in 
giving out information regarding his models. 

When pictures are published or exhibited, curiosity is always 
aroused in some quarters regarding the identity of the persons posing 
for them. The photographer should be prepared to receive — and 
politely to divert—many inquiries on this subject. 

A few of these inquiries may merit consideration—i.e., ques¬ 
tions from bona fide theatrical agents or producers. A photographer 
must be very certain that it is to the possible advantage of his model 
to be put in touch with an inquirer. And he should never, under 
any circumstances , send the address or name directly to the corre¬ 
spondent. The letter should be turned over to the model, and the 
final responsibility left with her. 

The majority of inquiries are not legitimate, and seem to imply 
that the photographer is a sort of pictorial Pandarus always willing 


256 


to oblige with specifications and telephone numbers. 

The following formula is suggested as a tactful method of dis¬ 
couraging such inquiries: 


Dear Mr. Blotz: 

It is some years since I photographed the lady you ask 
about, so I am unfortunately unable to provide you with her 
address. 

However, I am happy to be able to inform you that for 
some time past her two eldest sons have been living in Chi¬ 
cago, where one of them has been working as brakeman for 
the New York Central. 

His present address is 1224 Gilhooley Ave. Owing to the 
exigencies of his profession, he is seldom at home; but if you 
enquire there, one of the children will undoubtedly be able to 
inform you of their grandmother’s whereabouts. 

Hoping this information will prove useful to you, and 
that you will continue to favor me with your little problems, 

Cordially yours. 


257 


APPENDIX B 


Self-Protective Precautions . 


In Appendix A I mentioned some of the rights, legal and moral, 
of the model. The model is entitled to protection from cheap ex¬ 
ploitation and from unauthorized use of his or her picture. 

The photographer likewise is liable to certain perils in his deal¬ 
ings with models, and the inexperienced worker may find himself in 
a serious predicament unless he takes proper precautions. 

The first, most elementary and most important of these precau¬ 
tions is: Be sure that releases are signed by all models. The release 
protects the artist equally with the model and insures him against 
embarrassment and possible lawsuits. Careless photographers pay 
through the nose every year because their failure to observe this 
simple precaution gives the models a chance to tell the judge that 
their reputation has suffered a hurt that can only be soothed in a 
substantial monetary way. 

If a photographer does much work with models, he should pro¬ 
tect himself with some form of liability insurance. The hazard to 
life and limb that a model undergoes is not great, as a rule, but there 
is always the possibility of an accident serious enough to give a dis¬ 
gruntled or litigiously inclined model an excuse to bring suit. And 
there are remote but genuine risks that should be guarded against: a 
model may be injured by the collapse of a setting, or by tipping over 


258 


heavy lighting equipment, or she may catch cold on a location trip 
and fall ill with pneumonia. All liability for such accidents may be 
taken care of by insurance. 

There is another sort of risk that the artist should guard against: 
damage to his self-esteem. Occasionally one encounters a highly in¬ 
dependent model who wants to hedge the photographer about with 
humiliating restrictions. She will say, for example, “Yes, I will pose 
for you. But I must inspect all your negatives and you must destroy 
all those that I do not approve of. Nor shall you make any prints 
from any negatives except by my permission.” If the model is very 
lovely, the temptation may be strong to humbly knuckle under and 
meet all conditions in the remote hope of somehow salvaging a pic¬ 
ture. A much wiser plan is to tell such a model to take her beautiful 
body and jump into the lake with it. For an artist to accept such 
restrictions is for him to surrender his directorial prerogative by 
giving the model the upper hand. This directorial prestige is all- 
important to him; without it he is just a candid cameraman. Nor 
should the photographer fail to note the insult implied in suggesting 
such restrictions: she says, in effect, “I do not consider you a good 
enough artist to make a selection from my negatives, nor do I con¬ 
sider you a sufficiently honest man to be trusted with them.” 

Finally, we come to a more insidious risk against which the pho¬ 
tographer is best protected by simply being aware of its existence. 
It is a fact that the peculiar circumstances of nude photography 
provide an ideal setting for a frame-up. Amateur photographers 
are often persons of means and sufficiently concerned about their 
standing in their communities to constitute perfect victims for some 
variant of the old badger game. This risk is a genuine one: I know 
of several artists who have paid up rather than submit themselves 
to the notoriety of an unsavory lawsuit. 

In view of this danger, it behooves a photographer to be very 
careful in his selection of models, and to inform himself, whenever 
possible, of their background and reputation. He may further pro¬ 
tect himself, in the event that it is not feasible or advantageous for 
a third person to be present in the studio during the sitting, by mak- 


259 


ing sure, when he is employing a new or unknown model, that he 
has a representative in an adjoining room. And he will, of course, 
avoid any episodes or circumstances in the sitting that might give 
confirmatory colour to subsequent allegations. For this reason, he 
will not have the sitting late at night, nor will he locate his studio in 
a remote or inaccessible spot. For this reason, also, he will carefully 
restrain any lush or Oriental tastes that he may have in matters of 
interior decoration. A studio should be obviously and frankly a 
work-room—not a replica of a high-class bordello. 


260 


APPENDIX C 


Analysis of Faulty Nudes. 


Following is the author’s analysis of the faulty nudes shown in 
Figures 116, 117, 118 and 119 in Chapter Six: 

Figure 116: 

Slumped scapula (Figure 83) 

Hyper-extended elbow (Figure 49) 

Collapsed wrist (Figure 66) 

Bottom of foot (Figure 113) 

Leathery elbow 

Figure 117: 

Head thrown back too far (Figure 15) 

Elbow trap (Figure 46) 

Upper arm crushed against body (Figure 57) 

Collapsed wrist on supporting arm (Figure 66) 

Flattened fanetta (Figure 87) 

Knee stump (Figure 101) 

Figure 118: 

Butchery by light 

Head thrown back too far (Figure 15) 

Wrist cut by drapery 
Spread fingers 


261 


Figure 119: 

Broken wrists (Figure 65) 

Arm from nowhere (Figure 53) 

Knee stumps (Figure 101) 

Hyper-extended elbow (Figure 49) 

“Error of outlying parts” (Figure 121) 

In addition to containing the listed plastic errors. Figures 117 
and 118 are fairly typical examples of the “Ah Me” nude described 
in Chapter Three of Part Three. 


262 


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